Zedler, MD
by baileyxann
Summary: Beatrix was a trauma surgeon, and Daryl was nobody. Lucky for them, the impending apocalypse brought them together. [Daryl/OC]
1. Chapter 1: Rick Grimes

Beatrix

I take my time walking across the parking lot, being careful not to step on any of the body parts scattered around the hospital. My knife is clutched in my left hand, ready for use, though I hope I won't need it. I've only encountered three walkers that I've had to kill so far on my little trips here and back, and neither of those three times went over too well. I haven't been bitten, but they were all pretty close calls.

The door creeks as I push it open just enough to squeeze my body and my duffel bag through. I've been bringing supplies back to my apartment from the hospital each time I've been here to check up on him, so I've acquired a lot of medical supplies in case I need to use it. I quietly make my way down the hallway and stop at the room he's been in for the past three months. I sit on the bed outside of his room that blocks the entrance and crack the door open, briefly peeking in just to make sure he's still there. He is, so I continue on down to the pharmacy after slipping my knife back into its holder safely on my hip. My goal today is to stock up on antibiotics and painkillers, so that's what I do.

I quietly fill my black duffle up with as many pill bottles, syrenges, needles, and IV bags as I can fit inside. Then, I start making my way back towards his room. I thought I faintly heard someone calling for a nurse, but I brush it off as nothing and assume it's just my brain faintly recalling a memory from before the turn. I stop by the nurse's station to sit my bag down, get out the IV bag he needs, and pick up his file and a pen. I've been taking notes on his case and hopefully he'll be waking up from his mini-coma soon.

As I make my way back from the nurse's station, I immediately notice that the bed is pushed away from the doorway to his room. I quickly tuck the file and IV bag under my arm and run into the room. He's missing from his bed and his IV tubing is laying all over the floor. He must have woken up and wondered off. I need to find him and explain everything to him before he finds out for himself.

Leaving the IV bag and patient file on the table, I quietly jog down the hallways looking for him. After a few minutes, I find him standing in front of the double doors looking at the walker hands desperately grasping at him through the cracks.

"Don't dead, open inside," I say from right behind him. He jumps, obviously startled from my voice.

"What does that mean?" He questions, taking a couple of steps back from me.

"It's supposed to say 'don't open, dead inside', but the idiots made it look like 'don't dead, open inside'," I try to joke with him.

"Who are you?" He reties his hospital gown and gives me a skeptical look. I can tell he's very confused as to what's going on, just like I predicted.

"I'm Doctor Zedler, but you can call me Beatrix. I was the trauma suergon who saved your life from your gunshot wound," I take a step closer to him, and he backs away. "It's okay; I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to make sure everything is fine with you. Can we go back to your room?"

"Yeah," he mutters and let's me take his arm so I can help him walk. "Why are there dead people in the hallways? Why are you the only person here?"

"Calm down, Mr. Grimes, you're going to get your blood pressure up. I'll explain everything once I make sure you're okay," he nods his head and I help him into the chair beside his bed.

"Can I ask questions while you're working? Or would that interfere with anything?" He asks while I gather my supplies. I had to get another IV needle, seeing as he ripped his out. I sit on the stool in front of him, pulling the vital's cart along with me.

"Of course, but you're probably going to think I'm insane. You must believe that this is real, because it is," I strap the blood pressure cuff on him and start to take his pulse.

"What were the things behind the doors? Those weren't people."

"Mr. Grimes, those are walkers," I start, but he cuts me off.

"Call me Rick please."

"Of course," I smile and remove the cuff from his arm, writing everything down in his chart. "They're walkers, or at least that's what I like to call them. They were once people, but they died and resurrected as these things."

"If they're dead, how can they come back? And where is everybody else?" He wince as I insert his IV line back into his arm.

"I have no idea what the virus is, but I do know that whatever is is, it restarts the motor part of the brain that lets them move. The person they were before is gone," I frown as I bring the IV pole over and hook all of his bags up. "As for everybody else, they evacuated the town about two months ago. Almost everybody in town headed for Atlanta where the government was supposed to have had protection camps set up."

"Why did you stay here?"

"I wanted to help you. Plus, I don't really have family anyway, so I don't have much to lose." I smile and retrieve a bottle of water from one of the bedside cabinets, handing it to Rick. "When the hospital was being evacuated, they came in and shot up everyone. Living people running in the halls, they were all getting shot, so I hid out in here with you. I sat beside of your bed until I heard everything settle down. They probably just assumed that you were already dead and let you be, but I knew you weren't. I was hopeful that you would soon wake up, so I stayed and continued to care for you after everybody else left."

"That's admirable, Beatrix. Not many people would do that for a random stranger," Rick gives me a slight smile.

"You weren't a random stranger. You were my patient and I needed to make sure I saved you," I return his smile and go to retrieve some gauze and antiseptic from the supply cabinet in the corner of the room. "Can you stand up for me? I need to redress your wound."

"Sure," he does as I asked. "So you said that everybody left for Atlanta?" I nod my head and I can tell that he's starting to panic. "I need to find my wife and son. Do you know if they're here?"

"I'm sorry, I don't. You're the only living person I've seen in a couple of months, but we can look for them. Where's your house? If it's close to here we can walk." I finish wrapping his abdomen and tape it off.

"About a mile from here, it's not too far," Rick says while tying his robe again. "How long have I been out?"

"A little over three months," I say while I write down more in his file. "The bullet nicked your kidney and you almost lost it. I put you in a medically induced coma, which, combined with the near kidney failure and shock, sent you into an actual coma. I'm sorry for that, I feel terrible. I was just doing what I thought would keep you alive."

"You saved my life, that's enough for me." Rick smiles and places a hand on my shoulder. "So have you killed any of the- what did you call them? Walkers?- yet?"

"Unfortunately yes, but only three," I sigh, grab the file, and walk out the door. "Come with me and bring your IV pole. I need to go to my apartment first."

"How far away is that?" Rick asks as he stumbles behind me towards the nurse's station.

"Not too far, just about a block or so. Since I work here, it's convenient for me to live close," I smile and slip the pen into the pocket of my lab coat. I like wearing it over my scrubs to the hospital to make myself feel at least a little bit normal.

"Alright," he agrees and waits for me to gather my things from the nurse's station. "Can I help you carry anything?"

"No, no. You need to worry about your IV pole and focus on not falling," I grab my duffle and do a quick sweep to make sure there isn't anything else I can carry out with me now. "We'll have to come back later to get more supplies. Not trying to be mean, but what are you going to do if your wife and son aren't here?"

"I'm going to Atlanta to find them," he gives me a look that says 'is that even a question?' "You can come with me if you'd like."

"That would be nice," I smile at him again. "I need somebody to keep me company until this whole thing gets sorted out."

"I'm still having trouble believing that this is all real," he quietly says as we walk out of the building. As soon as he sees the rows of bodies, I can see the look of horror spread across his face. "It's real, isn't it?"

"Sadly," I mutter. "It's this way, come on."

He pulls his IV pole behind him as I lead the way to my apartment building. It was about a five minute walk and then another five to get Rick and his pole up the stairs to my floor. I unlock my door and gently sit the duffle down on the couch.

"Here," I pick out the biggest pair of shoes in my closet and hand them to him. "I know they're kind of girly, but they'll do until you get to your house. If your wife and son aren't here then we'll need to come back here too and get all of the medical supplies I've taken from the hospital in case we need it."

"Thank you," Rick says as he slips the shoes on. "Do I need to keep this in my arm or can I take it out? It's difficult to deal with."

"Um, I'm not sure. Sit on the bar stool and undo your robe for me," I stand in front of the stool, so his abdomen was almost level with my eyes. I remove the gauze from the bullett hole and press my fingers lightly on the skin around it. "Does that hurt?"

"Not really," Rick replies as I apply more pressure. I give him a questioning look and he just shakes his head. I stick my stethescope in my ears and place the end on his chest.

"Your heartbeat is normal," I mutter before slipping my arm around and holding the stethescope to his back, listening to the valves of his lungs. "Deep breath."

"So am I good?" He asks after I remove the stethescope from his back. I take my mini flashlight from my front pocket and shine it in his eyes.

"Pupils dialate fine," I ignore his question for the time being and glance at his IV bag. "I can take it out now if you want, but it would be better if you let the rest of the fluids get into your system. They're almost gone anyway, and it would only take half an hour."

"I want it out now. I need to go see if my family is here," I can tell he's trying to be polite, but he wants out of my house right now. So I comply to his wishes and remove the IV from his arm and tape a peice of gauze over it to prevent bleeding.

"Let's go," I say after taking off my lab coat and double checking to make sure my knife is still hung on my hip.

We spend the short twenty minute walk to Rick's house in silence. When it gets within seeing range, Rick takes off in a run towards the house, and I jog right behind him. Once he gets through the door, he starts screaming for his wife and son, who I had met previously when they came to visit Rick in the hospital.

"Rick, you need to be quiet. Sound attracts them," I whisper-yell at him before he finally stops his screaming.

"Carl no no no," Rick mutters before dropping to the floor and sobbing. Before I even have time to react, he's up and out on the lawn screaming agin. If he doesn't shut up, he's going to get us killed. I shake my head and look down before deciding that I should probably go and bring him inside so we can figure out a plan.

"Dad! Dad, I got one!" I hear a young boy scream from outside. I see an older black man running towards him at the same time I was, seeing Rick collapsed on the grass with the small, black child standing beside of him holding a baseball bat and smiling.

"You idiot!" I yell, gesturing to Rick, "This man is my friend! He just woke up from a coma and you could have very well given him a concussion."

"I apologize, Miss. Duane here just thought he was one of them," the older black man says. I assume he's Duane's dad.

"Well we need to get him inside somewhere," I argue, seeing that we've attracted the attention of a few walkers.

"Let's take him to my house. It's safe," the man says as he picks Rick up and startes to run. I follow right behind him, not wanting to have to kill anymore of the walkers.

Once we arrive at the house, the man takes Rick into one of the back rooms while I take it upon myself to lock the door and prevent anything from getting in. I wander back to the room to find the man tying Rick to the bed.

"Stop it, why are you tying him up?" I hold my hands up, but the man holds a knife up, warning me to back off.

"Need to make sure he's safe," the man replies before forcing me to sit down in a chair across of fom the bed. "My name is Morgan."

"Beatrix," I smile, but the look he gave me makes me drop it very quickly. "That's Rick."

We sit in silence for about half an hour until Rick starts to stir. By now, it's getting close to dark, so Duane turns on an oil lamp. Morgan begins splashing Rick's face with water until his eyes finally open.

"Were you bit?" Morgan violently asks Rick, not giving him any time to fully wake up.

"What?" Rick asks, still confused from his half-unconscious state.

"Were you bit or scratched?" Morgan asks again, getting closer to his face.

"As far as I know, no," Rick replies and looks to me. "Why would I have been bit?"

"What's your wound from?" Morgan asks him, ignoring his question.

"Gunshot," I say. "Three months ago, before the turn. I'm the one that operated on him. He's clean of all bites and scratches. He just woke up earlier today and I've been with him ever since."

"Why would I have been bit?" Rick repeate his question, now fully awake and thoroughly confused.

"She didn't tell you?" Morgan asks and Rick shakes his head no, "If you get bit or scratched by a walker, you turn into one."

"Well, I'm clean. I haven't even fully seen a walker yet," Rick tells Morgan as he cut the ties from his wrists.

"Now's as good a time as any to see one then," Morgan stands up and leaves the room. Rick and I follow right after, to see him pointing out the blinds in the living room. "Right there, they'll try they best to eat you. You two can stay here tonight if you need to, it's too dangerous to go outside now."

"We will, thank you," Rick nods his head.

Morgan makes us dinner, which was just warmed up soup beans from a can, but it's still nice. Nice to be able to eat with actual people again. It's mostly silent, aside from Morgan talking about how his wife died.

The men all go to sleep in the living room, leaving me with the room that Morgan had Rick in. I lock the door and place my knife on the bedside table before drifting off to sleep.

The next morning, Rick offers to take the four of us to the Sheriff's station to get guns and amno, but only if we go back to his house first. Of course, we all go and let Rick get a change of clothes to bring along with us.

"The photo albums are all gone," Rick smiles, clearly happy. "If you were to rob a house right now to get stuff that you would need, why would you take photo albums?"

"I wouldn't," I say, getting the point that he was trying to make.

"That's right! You wouldn't take them unless they were _your_ photo albums," Rick walks to the kitchen and comes back with a set of keys. "Lori and Carl are alive."

None of us argue with him and just let him think what he wants, even though we all know that the chances were that they were dead. Regardless, Rick leads us out to his police car and start our journey to the Sheriff's station. I sit shotgun on the quiet, half-hour drive over there.

Once we're in the building, Rick tells us that the station has back up generators so we can take showers. I am eternally grateful as I go to the girl's locker room and take the first actual shower I've had in nearly two months. I keep my knife close, though I don't need it while I take my shower. I put my scrubs back on and wrap my hair in my towel after I get out and head over to the boy's locker room. They are all fully dressed and ready to go.

Rick takes us to the armory, which appears to be untouched, and starts piling guns into a bag. Once he has most of them in his bag, he hands Morgan a bag as well.

"You take the rest of them, you'll need it," Rick says. He toys with his hat while Morgan collects the guns he wants, leaving nothing behind. "Are you sure you don't want to go to Atlanta with us?"

"Not right now. I'm gonna teach Duane here how to use a gun and then we'll come behind you," Morgan explains as we exit the building.

"If you need to find us, we'll be on channel three," Rick hands Morgan a walkie-talkie. "Turn it on evey morning at dawn and I'll be on the other end. Leave it on for an hour and then turn it back off; you need to conserve the battery."

"Thank you, Rick. For everything," Morgan holds his hand out for Rick to shake, and he takes it. "You too, Beatrix. I hope you guys find your family."

"Thank you," Rick tips his hat and lets Morgan leave in another cop car. "We better get going back to your appartment to get whatever you need."

"Don't you want to bring more clothes with you other than that sheriff's uniform?" I ask, getting in the car and buckling up.

"I won't need them," Rick says and then slightly laughs. "You don't have to buckle up, I won't give you a ticket."

"Sorry, it's just a habit," I look down as he drives back to my place.

"Don't be sorry. Are we stopping at the hospital before or after your apartment?"

"After. We need to get as much medical supplies as we possibly can and I need to get the bags to pack it in. We're going to need it desperately," I say. I try to think of all the scenarios of what we could possibly use medical supplies for and there's just too many. We are definitely going to need a lot, especially if we do end up finding Lori and Carl.

"As long as you can pack it, we can bring it," Rick smiles and continues on down the road.

Once we get to my house, I quickly run up the stairs with Rick not far behind me. We need to get all of this done pretty quick if we want to get to Atlanta before dark.

"How can I help?" Rick asks, just standing in my bedroom, watching me look for things.

"Get in my closet and find the biggest suitcase you can. Pull it down and lay it on the bed," I instruct. I then run back to my kitchen and grab all of the duffle bags I have filled with medical supplies, even though it takes me muliple trips, and lay them out on my bed. "Take everything out of these and stuff it all in the suitcase. It should all fit if you put the gauze in the zipper pockets, IV bags and tubing in the first compartment, and the rest in the bottom. Just be careful not to break anything or poke yourself."

"Got it," Rick says as he begins dumping everything out onto my bed.

I grab the first duffle bag he emptied and begins throwing clothes into it. Not much, just a few tank tops, t-shirts, pants, socks and underwear. I also throw in a few sets of scrubs and my only two lab coats just because I'm too attached to them to leave them. I stuff my cowboy boots inside and put my combat boots on my feet.

"Are you done yet?"I ask Rick after I'm finished packing my things.

"Yeah, it's pretty stuffed, but I got it all inside. Don't you think it's a little much though?"

"You can never have too much medical supplies," I smile at him and grab another suitcase from my closet. "Bring another duffle along too, I'm taking everything I can from the hospital."

"You loved your job, didn't you?" Rick asks as he pulls the suitcase behind him with two more duffle bags in his hands.

"More than anything," I sigh. My job was my life and now it's all gone. I just hope that I can find more people that I can save.

"Do you want to bring the IV pole too?" Rick asks. I know he's joking, but I'm not.

"If it'll fit in your car somehow," I raise my eyebrow, fully expecting him to say no.

"Grab it, we can manage."

I smile and pull the IV pole behind me as we grt back down to Rick's car. He loads all of the suitcases and empty duffle bags into the trunk and somehow manages to stuff the IV pole into the backseat. When we get to the hospital, we each grab two duffle bags and Rick grabs the other suitcase and we quietly make our way back to the nurse's station.

"So where is everything that we'll need at?" Rick asks, not sitting anything down.

"Everything is stored either in the ER or in the first floor storage room," I say, looking around. "And we don't need to split up, so which do you wanna go to first?"

"Wouldn't the best stuff be in the storage room? We should head there first and if we have anymore room, we should head to the ER," Rick says. He makes sense, so I nod my head and lead him to the storage room.

"We need to get everything needed for surgery, just in case, and fit it into the suitcase. Then stitch sets and whatever else we find," I say, scanning the shelves.

"I'll get the stitch sets and what not into the duffle bags. You can get the other stuff because I don't know what to get," Rick gets to work on dumping rolls of gauze, tape, and whatever else he could find into the duffle bags as I find the surgery essientals. After a while, we basically have the whole place cleared out and still one duffle bag left over. "We should head to the pharmacy to get more drugs."

"Beatrix, are you sure we need all of this?" Rick asks again, which makes me snap.

"Of course we need it, Rick. All of this, what I guess you think is useless shit, could very well save your life one day, so I wouldn't doubt it too much," I half yell in the middle of the hallway before realizing what I'm doing. "I'm sorry I didn't mean to snap. I just- I'm very passionate about medicine that's all."

"It's alright, I'm sure you're just stressed," he pats my back the best he could while carrying a suitcase and a duffle bag packed full.

"I wish I could bring an MRI with us," I sighed and shook my head as we entered the pharmacy. I told Rick to stuff as many over-the-counter drugs into the bags as he could while I took the empty duffle and went to the back, grabbing everything from high strength aspirins to paralyzing drugs. I was also careful to grab as many needles as I could find so that I could correctly insert them into the blood stream.

"Are we done now?" Rick asked. I could tell he was getting annoyed, which bothered me, so I nodded my head and we dragged everything out of the building and into his car. Then we began our short journey to Atlanta.

Rick attempted to radio anybody that he could through the one in the car, but it didn't work. Nobody answered, but it's not like we expected any less. It was eerily quiet in Atlanta when we arrived, and that bugged me, but I let it go. Rick drove down the street until he decided to make a turn down a street full of walkers.

"Oh shit," Rick muttered as he quickly put the car in reverse and backed up, only to be met by another swarm of walkers attacking us from the back. He threw his hat on the dash and handed me a gun, "stay right beside of me, we'll be okay."

"Don't forget to aim for the brain," I added right before he opened his door and dashed out with me following right behind him. Everywhere we turned there were walkers. I saw a tank not too far from where we were and pointed at it, grabbing Rick's arm,"Over there!"

"Hurry up, Bea," he yelled behind his shoulder before jumping up on the tank and shooting down the walkers that were trying to grab my feet as I pulled myself up. We lowered ourselves down inside of the tank before exchanging a look of panic.

"We're screwed."


	2. Chapter 2: Atlanta Escape

**Beatrix**

Rick slammed the door to the tank shut and sat down beside of a dead body while I planted my butt firmly in the drivers seat. My body started trembling from fear as I held my face in my hands, trying to pull myself together. I looked up at Rick just in time to see him attempting to get a grenade out of the dead soldier's pocket. The soldier's arms started to move towards Rick and I gasped. Once Rick noticed, he pulled out his gun and aimed it at the walker's head as it attempted to bite into his other arm.

"Rick don't sh-" I tried to warn him, but it was too late. He already fired off the shot and my ears started ringing. The aftermath of the gunshot inside the enclosed tank left the both of us disoriented and trying to regain composure by pushing our hands to our ears, like it would ease off some of the ringing. I managed to slur out, "You aren't supposed to fire guns in enclosed spaces like this. It could have busted either of our ear drums."

"Hello?" We heard another voice and turned to see that it was coming from the radio right beside of me. "Yeah you, the dumbasses in the tank. You wanna make it out of there alive?"

"Who are you?" I said as I grabbed the radio and pulled it to my face. Rick managed to stumble over to the passenger seat and take the radio from me. It's not like I minded, he probably has more experience with this stuff anyway.

"Does it really matter?" The man said back, "I'm offering to save your lives."

"Is there a way to get out of this?" Rick asked, wiping beads of sweat off of his forehead. I nervously bit my nails waiting for the reply.

"There are geeks completely surrounding the tank," the man paused momentarily. "Is there anything in there that you could use to distract them? Anything that makes noise?"

"The grenade you go off the walker," I whispered. "There's two more on that shelf over there."

"We've got a couple of lower grade grenades," Rick said, reaching over and grabbing the other two. "We could probably throw them without causing too much damage to any of the buildings."

"Alright, good. Right now, there are only three of them that have climbed on the actual tank. If you can go up the top, knife those and throw the grenades, you can distract them long enough to make your way to me in the alley," the man instructed.

"Are you serious? We can't go out there right now," I said, taking the radio from Rick.

"Beatrix, it's our best bet," Rick sighed and took the radio back from me. "We'll do it. Which way do we need to run?"

"Straight forward and slightly to the left," the man lightly sighed. "I'll be waiting at the edge, waving my hands so you can see me. Each of you, take a grenade and throw them in opposite directions so they'll seperate and you can get through."

"Thank you," Rick said and sat the radio back down in its rightful place. He handed me one of the grenades and I gave him a nervous look. "Keep your finger held down on the leaver. Once you get out, turn to the right. Pull the pin out and throw it as far as you can. Got it?" I nodded my head and he continued, "Since you've got a knife, can you get the ones on top of the tank?"

"Um I don't know. I'm not very good at killing them and-" I started to stutter and tightly clung the grenade in my left hand, afraid of accidentally setting it off.

"I'll do it, it's okay. Give me the knife," I handed him my knife and he stood up, undoing the latch on the top door.

"You all might wanna hurry up," the man called from the radio. "More and more are gathering around you."

"Come on, Beatrix," Rick said before lifting up the door and jumping out. I scrambled up and pulled myself out of the tank right after he did.

As soon as I was out, I turned to my right and gasped as I looked around me. Easily a hundred or more walkers were making their way to the tank and trying to climb on top of it to get to us. I froze for a few seconds before hearing Rick's grenade go off. I pulled the pin and chucked it as far as I could away from us. It landed quite a bit away, but I still felt the heat on my face as it went off. Turning back to Rick, I felt for my knife and realized that I was unarmed. He grabbed my arm and pulled me through the small parting in the walkers to the alley where an Asian looking man stood. We ran fast, dodging all the walkers that were coming at us, with Rick shooting down any one that got too close.

"Come on, up the ladder," the man yelled as he started climbing. Rick pushed me up ahead of him and I climbed as fast as I could underneath the Asian man. He noticed me looking all the way up, seeing how tall the building we were climbing was. "At least it'll be the fall that kills us. I'm a glass half full kinda guy."

After a couple of minutes, we finally made it to the top of the building and I collapsed onto the roof top, breathing heavily. That's easily the most of them I've seen at one time, ones that hadn't already been put down at least.

"Are you alright, Bea?" Rick asked, squatting down next to me.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I mumbled and sat up. "Just sacred."

"What's your name?" The Asian man asked. I'm pretty sure I know him from somewhere; he just looks so familiar.

"Rick Grimes," Rick held his hand out for the man to shake and he hesitantly took it. "This is Beatrix."

"Glenn Rhee," the man nodded at me as a response to the small wave I gave him when Rick introduced me.

"Why'd you save us?" I asked, standing up and peering over the edge of the building. There were small fires in the streets about a hundred feet away from the tank on either side, with walkers walking around on fire.

"I figured that if I ever got that far up shitcreek myself, Karma would be good to me. I guess I'm an even bigger dumbass than the both of you," he shrugged. "Follow me, I need to take you to the rest of my group."

Rick and I done as Glenn said and followed him across a bridge type thing to another roof and down the flights of stairs to the outside of the building we were on. We quickly dashed across the space between the building we just came from and the one Glenn's group was in. It was an abandoned department store with a few people standing in the corner, and a small horde of walkers beating on the glass doors.

"Who are you people?" A blonde woman said, waking up and pointing a gun in Rick's face. A few seconds after, a black woman grabbed my arm and pulled me back way from the scene, which I was thankful for.

"I'm Rick Grimes and that's Beatrix," he tilted his head toward me and I awkwardly smiled in her direction.

"Were you two the ones that set off the explosives in the streets?" The woman demanded, shoving the gun even closer to Rick's face. "We're all dead because of you two!"

"Andrea, back off!" A Mexican lookin man yelled at her.

"Shut up, Morales!" Andrea, I'm assuming, shouted at him. "Now why would you be so stupid as to let off grenades in the middle o the city?"

"They had to," Glenn butted in. "They were surrounded and I told them to. So just put the gun away, okay?"

"What are you talking about?" Rick asked as the woman put her gun down.

"I'm Andrea," she said before grabbing Rick's arm and pulling him towards the doors with the rest of us following behind. "You know they're attracted to noise right? Every geek from miles around heard you two blowing up everything. You just rang the dinner bell."

"Spleen!" I exclaimed, pointing at Glenn and suddenly remembering where I knew him from. I knew he looked familiar.

"What?" He looked confused, just like everyone else did, at my sudden outburst. I felt my cheeks burn red from embarassment because of it.

"I thought you looked familiar, and i just figured out where I know you from," I smiled as I recalled the memory. "You were in a car accident about seven months before the turn, right? And you had your spleen removed?"

"Yeah," Glenn raised an eyebrow, probably now creeped out because I know that. "How do you know that?"

"Because I was the one that removed it," I shrugged. "It was all ruptured and gross. Pretty cool though."

"How come I never seen you then? I thought my doctor was the one that removed it?"

"No, it was me. I was a trauma suergon and I just happened to be at the hospital when they brought you in, unconscious might I add. I'm always the one that operates, but never gets the credit because people just assume their normal doctor done it," I explained. It's not really fair that I didn't get credit, but I saved their lives and that's all that really matters.

"Oh. Well, thanks I guess," Glenn laughed as we heard three gunshots ring out.

"Is that Dixon?" Andrea yelled and took off toward the roof, all of us following her.

"Hey, Dixon, are you crazy?" Morales yelled at a man who was standing on the edge of the roof with a sniper.

"You outta be more polite to a man with a gun," the guy, I'm guessing named Dixon laughed, jumping down. "It's only common sense."

"Man you're wastin' bulletts we ain't even got!" The black man, who's name I still don't know, shouted, running towards Dixon. "You're gonna bring even more of 'em down here on us, man, just chill!"

"You think I'm gonna take orders from you," Dixon gave another sarcastic laugh. "I don't think so, bro. That'll be the day."

"Oh that'll be the day? You got something you wanna tell me?"

"T-Dog it's not worth it," Morales said from beside of the black man. "Now, Merle, just relax okay? We've already got enough trouble."

"You wanna know the day?" Merle said, getting up in T-Dog's face. So his first name is Merle and his last name is Dixon, got it.

"Yeah, I do."

"I'll tell you the day, Mr. Yo," Merle pointed his gun. "It's the day I take orders from a nigger."

T-Dog immediately lunges at Merle, punching him in the face. I want to go help, but Glenn shoots Rick and I a look that tells us not to, and then goes to help himself. Rick doesn't listen, but I stay put as Merle continues to hit and kick T-Dog even after he's on the ground. Merle hits Rick in the face, sending him onto the ground as well.

"Get off him, you're gonna kill him!" Andrea screeches, while keeping her distance. Merle pulls out a handgun, seeing as he threw his sniper to the side, and stuck it on T-Dog's mouth. "No, no, no please."

"Yeah," Merle says after he spits on T-Dog. "We're gonna have ourselves a little powwow. Talk about who's in charge. I vote me, anybody else? Democracy time ya'll, all in favor." Everybody, aside from Rick and I raise our hands, "Anybody else?"

"Yeah, me," Rick says as he comes up behind Merle and punches him in the jaw. Merle falls to the ground and Rick handcuffs him to a pole on the roof.

"Who the hell are you, man?" Merle frantically yells.

"Officer Friendly," Rick growls. "Listen, Merle, things are different now. There are no niggers anymore. There aren't any dumb as shit white trash inbreds fools either. Only dark meat and white meat; there's us and the dead. We survive this by puing together, not apart."

"Screw you, man."

"I can see you have a habit of missing the point."

"Yeah, well screw you twice."

"You outta be more polite to a man with a gun," Rick says, pointing his handheld to Merle's temple. "It's only common sense."

"You won't do it, you're a cop."

"All I am anymore is a man looking for his wife and his son," Rick says, tilting his head. I remember his wife and son, Lori and Carl. I ran into them while checking up on Rick's condition post-op before the turn. "Anybody who gets in the way of that is gonna lose."

Rick pats him down before pulling out a half smoked joint from his pocket, flicking his nose and throwing it off the building. Merle started screaming some more, but I just tuned it out.

"Beatrix!" Andrea called from the other side of the room. I looked up to see her waving me over, "Come over here."

"I didn't get to properly introduce myself earlier," the black woman held her hand out to me and I shook it. "I'm Jacqui."

"T-Dog," the black guy said form the ground. He was still lying down and breathing heavily from his fight with Merle. He then grabbed a radio and started changing the frequencies, trying to contact somebody.

"I'm Beatrix," I smiled and pushed a piece of hair behind my ear.

"How's that signal?" Morales asked T-Dog, walking back over to the group with Rick.

"Like Dixon's brain power," T-Dog laughed. "Weak"

"It's not like they can do anything to help us," Andrea scoffed while Merle flipped T-Dog off.

"Got some people outside the city," Morales said to Rick and I. "There's no refugee center."

"We'll just have to find a way out ourselves then," Rick said, glancing down at the walker filled streets.

"Good luck with that. I hear the streets in this part of town ain't safe," Merle butts in, then turns his attention to me. "Ain't that right sugar tits? Say you get me outta these cuffs. We could go out somewhere and bump some uglies. We're gonna die anyway."

"I'd rather," I barely glance his way. I'm appalled at his behavior. Seriously, who says that stuff?

I then sit down next to T-Dog as the rest of the group try to plan our escape. The group heads downstairs to try and find a drainage pipe while I stay on the roof with T-Dog and Merle. It's not that I'd rather be near Merle, I just don't wanna chance going into the store and have the walkers break through the glass.

"Anybody out there?" T-Dog said into the radio, "I wish I could hear somebody else's voice because I'm gettin sick and tired of hearing mine."

"That makes two of us," Merle scoffs. "Why don't you just give up? Ain't nobody gonna answer?"

"Why are you such a jerk?" I looked up at Merle. "You're rude to people when you literally have no reason to."

"Well, sweetheart, I do it because it's fun," Merle smirks and continues to pester T-Dog. "Why are you still sittin up here, talkin into a radio that ain't nobody gonna reply to? You're givin me a headache listenin to you go on."

"If you'd pull your head out of your ass for half a second, maybe your headache would go away," T-Dog retorts and I feel like high-fiving him. That was a good one.

"Why can't you just be positive? Think happy and everything will work out for you," I advise him.

"I tell you what, honey buns. You get me outta these cuffs and I'll be all Sammy Sunshine for you." Merle smirks at me, "Get me that hacksaw from that toolbox over there. I'll make it worth your while."

"Just so you can beat my ass again?" T-Dog scoffed, "Or call me a nigger some more?"

"Oh come on, it ain't nothin personal," Merle tries to reason with him and I just shake my head. "It's just that your kind and my kind ain't supposed to mix. Don't mean we can't work together as long as there's some kind of mutual gain involved. So, how bout that hacksaw?"

"I guess you want me to get that rifle over there too, huh?" T-Dog nods his head towards the gun. "So you can shoot that cop when he comes back up."

Mere just scoffs and it falls silent. Except for the walkers on the streets, of course. The rest of the group comes back up and starts looking over the rooftop with binoculars when an idea pops into my head.

"Wait guys," I jump up and grab a pair of binoculars from Rick and look over the ledge. I see a construction site with delivery trucks parked in it. "Construction sites normally keep a set of keys to their vehicles on site, right? And the walkers, they can tell us by our smell, am I correct?"

"Yeah, what's your point?" Glenn asks.

"What if one or two of us covered ourselves in walker guts. We could easily blend in with them long enough to get to a truck and swing back around to pick everybody up," I smile, proud of my idea.

"That's insane," Rick says, shaking his head. "But it'll work and I'll do it. Glenn will you come with me?"

"I-" Glenn starts, but eventually gives up. "Yeah, I'll go."

"Good, come on," Rick says, taking off down the stairs again. Merle starts his screaming again, but we all ignore him as we follow Rick.

"If bad ideas were an Olympic sport, this would take the gold," Glenn complains as we all grab pairs of gloves and trench coats and put them on. Morales and T-Dog run outside the doors to retrieve a dead walker and they pull him back inside. Rick takes an axe and starts to swing it at the body on the ground, then stops.

"Wayne Dunlap," he says, looking through his wallet. "Georgia license, born nineteen seventy-nine. He had twenty-eight dollars in his pocket when he died, and a picture of a pretty girl. He used to be like us, worrying about bills, or the Super Bowl. If I ever find my family, I'll tell them about Wayne and the sacrifice he made for us."

"One more thing," Glenn speaks up, also looking at Wayne's wallet. "He was an organ donor."

I couldn't help but to chuckle at the irony, which earned me a few disapproving looks from everyone. Rick proceeded to chop up the body anyway, making sure to get blood and guts everywhere. Glenn, Jacqui, and Andrea all puked as Morales continued chopping. It didn't faze me though; this is basically what I saw every day with my job.

"Everybody got gloves?" Rick asked and we all nodded our heads, "Good. Don't get any in your eyes or on your skin."

We all nodded and began picking up the mangled body parts and rubbing them on Rick and Glenn. Andrea picked up the large intestine and hung it around Glenn's nick, while I coped her and hung the small around Rick's neck.

"Oh this is so bad," Glenn shivered, his face turning paler than normal.

"You'll be fine, it's just the human body. You have the same things inside of you," I shrugged he gave me a 'you really are insane' look.

"Think of other things," Rick suggested. "Like puppies or kittens."

"Dead puppies and kittens," T-Dog mumbled.

"That's just evil. What is wrong with you?" Andrea groaned, while still lathering walker guts onto Glenn, who just puked again.

"Next time, let the crack head beat his ass," Jacqui said to Rick.

After a little while, the were completely covered in guts and were armed with an axe and a baseball bat. Rick have T-Dog the key to get Merle off of the roof and we all ran up there to watch them.

"Do you think they'll make it?" Jacqui asked. Not to anybody in particular, just in general.

"If it starts raining they won't," I mumble, looking at the rain clouds overhead.

"You mean that asshole's out on the streets with the handcuff keys?" Merle yelled.

"Nope," T-Dog said, waving the key in front of his face. He kept trying to get ahold of their group, and he eventually did. I hope we can get back to them though.

"There, look!" Morales pointed down to the streets to a delivery truck driving by. Rick and Glenn had made it and they were coming back for us. "Come on, we've gotta go."

I follows the rest of the group, save T-Dog who was uncuffing Merle, downstairs and to the delivery dock in the back. Seconds later, T-Dog came in screaming to open the door, so we did and Rick was outside waiting on us. We all scrambled in the back of the delivery truck, T-Dog coming in last without Merle. He couldn't have possibly left him there on purpose.

"I dropped the key," he suddenly said, probably guessing what we were thinking.

"Where's Glenn?" I asked from the front seat, right beside of Rick. As soon as I said it, I heard a car alarm going off as Glenn sped past us on the road in a Dodge Challenger. Even from inside the car with the windows rolled up, I could hear him screaming with joy as he drove past. I lightly laughed at his excitement of driving an expensive car.


	3. Chapter 3: Daryl Dixon

**Beatrix**

"Don't dwell on the fact that we left him behind," Morales pops his head in between Rick and I while we're pulling up the hill to their camp. "Nobody will be sad he's gone. Except maybe Daryl."

"Who's Daryl?" I ask him. He didn't have time to reply though because as soon as we stop, he jumps out of the back of the van to run to his family.

"Let's go meet our new group," Rick places a hand on my shoulder before getting out of the van. I followe behind him, trying to take in everyone around when I spot Lori bending down to talk to Carl.

"Rick," I poke his shoulder and point to the pair. He runs to meet Carl, literally tacking him in a hug and running on to Lori. A few tears come to my eyes as I watch the happy sight unfold. It reminds me of what it was like when a patient would wake up after surgery and I got to go tell the family.

"Doctor Zedler?" I whip my head around to look at Shane, who is standing beside of an RV.

"Hi, Shane," I wave at him from where I'm standing. I've operated on him before, and he was the one that told the EMTs to bring Rick to me. He thought I was a good suergon and I was proud of that.

"Did you?" He points to Rick and I nod my head, knowing what he was asking. He walks over to me and wrapped his arms around me in a hug, "Thank you."

"It's my job," I laugh as I hug him back. "And call me Beatrix. There's no need for the doctor title anymore."

"So who exactly are you two?" An older man with white hair and a beard asks, looking between Rick and I.

"Rick Grimes, I was the King County sheriff before all of this went down. I got shot and was in a coma, but Doctor Zedler here," he motions to me. "Saved my life."

"Thank you so much," Lori lets go of Rick and moved over to give me a hug. She whispers in my ear, "I remember you from the hospital."

"Yeah, I pulled the bullet fragments out of his kidney," I smile at her as we pulled away from the hug.

"How'd you get with him now though?" Lori wipe the tears from her eyes as the rest of the group listenes in.

"Well, um," I nervously push my hair behind my ears again. I don't like talking in groups of people I don't know. "I kind of stayed back in King County in my apartment and checked on him until he woke up yesterday."

"Well I know we'd all love to hear the full story," Shane says and everyone nods in agreement. "But it's getting dark and we need to make a fire. I'm sure you and Rick will tell us everything that happened around the fire, right?"

"Of course," Rick smiles and I give a small nod of agreement.

I help Lori and Andrea arrange chairs around the fire pit while the men gather wood. Soon enough, the sun is gone and we're all sitting around the fire with blankets wrapped around us. I'm sat between Glenn and Shane, half listening to everyone talk about what happened at the department store today. I tunevback into the conversation when someone asked Rick about walking up again.

"Disoriented. That's the word that comes closest to what I felt," he sighs.

"Words don't always give us the explanation we want," the older man, whose name I learned to be Dale, pipes up.

"Yeah," Rick trails off.

"Mom said you were dead," Carl looks up at Rick. The sight breaks my heart. Carl is such a sweet boy. He'd always bring Rick a toy or something when he came to visit him in the hospital. He was part of the reason I wanted to stay and help Rick.

"She had every right to believe that," Rick pats Carl's face. "Don't you ever doubt it."

"Before everything fell, I went to the hospital. They said they were going to move you and all of the other patients to Atlanta," Lori trails off, looking at me as if I was the one who told her that.

"I can see why they didn't after looking at Atlanta. By the looks of the hospital, it got overrun. Beatrix, do you know what happened there?" Rick asks me.

"Um, yeah," I sit up and brush my hair behind my ears again. I suppose I do that when I'm nervous. "I went straight to the hospital after I heard about the evacuation. I was going to go with you to Atlanta if they would let me, but it was a totally different story once I got there. I saw Shane running out as I was running in and went straight to your room. There was a bed covering your door, so I hopped over it and went on in. There were people in riot gear shooting up anyone in the hallway, dead or alive. I just kind of hid out in Rick's room until everything settled down."

"I'm can't begin to tell you how greatful I am to you, Beatrix," Rick smiles at me, and then Shane. "You too, Shane. I can't even begin to express it."

"There those words go falling short again," Dale gives a slight smile. "Has anyone given any thought to Daryl Dixon? He's not gonna be too happy about his brother getting left behind."

"I dropped the key, I'll tell him," T-Dog mutters.

"I'm the one that cuffed him, I'll do it," Rick offers.

"This isn't a competition," Glenn says, irritated. "And I don't mean to bring race into this, but it would sound a whole lot better coming from a white guy."

"I'm not gonna hide from what I done," T-Dog argues back.

"I agree with Glenn," I speak up for the first time without being spoken to. "If this Daryl guy is anything like his brother, he'll kill T-Dog on the spot."

"We could lie to him?" Andrea's sister, Amy, suggests.

"Or we could just tell the truth," Andrea fires back. "Merle was out of control and if we didn't do something, he was gonna get us all killed. Rick done what was necessary. Merle getting left behind was nobody's fault but Merle's."

"That's what we're supposed to tell Daryl? I'm sorry but I don't see a rational discussion coming from this," Dale looks at us like he can't believe what we're suggesting. "Word to the wise, we're gonna have our hands full when he gets back from this hunt."

"I was scared and I ran. I'm not ashamed of it," T-Dog sits up straighter.

"We all ran. What's your point?" Andrea asks.

"I stopped long enough to chain that door. The stairway is narrow. Not enough of the geeks can fit in there to break open the door Not that chain, and not that padlock," T-Dog tries to reason. "My point is Dixon is alive, and he's still handcuffed up on that roof."

"We should all head to bed," Lori suggests and everyone agrees. She walks over and places a hand on my shoulder, "You can sleep in Daryl's tent tonight, seeing as he's not here right now. We'll figure out something else when he gets back tomorrow though."

"Thank you, Lori," I smile and head off towards the tent she pointed at. There were two sleeping bags lying on the ground and I pick the one on the right. I curl upinside of it and drift off to sleep.

I wake up the next morning to screaming. It sounds like Carl, so I quickly get up and ran out of the tent. Lori and Rick run past me and I just follow them, wanting to see what's going on. Lori stops shortly before Rick does to comfort Carl, but I follow Amy and Andrea into the small clearing to see a walker chewing on a deer.

"Ew," Amy grimaced as the men begin beating the walker until Dale finally decapitated it.

"This is the first one up this far on the mountain," Dale sighs.

"They're running out of food in the city," another guy, who's name I don't know, says. The bushes start rattling again and we all stay still, waiting for whatever is about to come out.

"Ah, Jesus," Shane mumbles as a man in a wife beater with a crossbow stumbles out from behind a rock.

"Son of a bitch," he throws his free hand in the air. "That's my deer! Look at it all gnawed on by this filthy, disease bearing, motherless, poxy bastard." With each insult, he kicks the walker's body over and over. I'm assuming this man is Daryl, Merle's brother.

"That's not helping anything," Dale tries to calm him down.

"What do you know about it, old man? Take your stupid hat and go back to old golden pawn." He starts pulling his arrows out of the deer, "I've been tracking it for miles. Was gonna pull it back to camp and cook us up some vineson. Think we can cut around this chewed up part right here?"

"I would not risk that," Shane says and the man grunts.

"It's a damn shame," the man shakes his head. "I got some squirrels though. Bout a dozen or so, it'll have to do."

"Oh god," Amy mutters again as the walker head starts moving.

"C'mon people, what the hell?" The man says, clearly irritated. He points his crossbow at it and shoots it in the eye. "Gotta be the brain. Don't ya'll know nothin?"

I follow Amy and Andrea back to the camp as we wait for the men to retun. We all exchange worried looks as Daryl, I was right about the name, comes back around yelling for Merle to come out and help him skin the squirrels.

"Daryl, slow up a bit I need to talk to you," Shane runs a hand through his hair as he walks closer to Daryl.

"Bout what?"

"Bout Merle," Shane says. Everyone's eyes are on them, "There was a, uh, problem in Atlanta."

Daryl nods his head, "He dead?"

"We're not sure," Shane replies.

"Well either he is or he ain't," Daryl throws his rope of squirrels on the ground, obviously getting angry.

"Look, there isn't an easy way to say this, so I'll just say it," Rick walks up to Daryl.

"Oh yeah? Who are you?"

"Rick Grimes."

"Well, Rick Grimes, you got somethin you wanna tell me?" Daryl growls.

"Your brother was a danger to us all," Rick says and I prepare for the worst. This guy seems just like Merle, "So I handcuffed him to a piece of metal on the roof. He's still up there."

"Hold on, let me process this," Daryl wipes his face. "You sayin you handcuffed my brother to a roof? And you left him there?"

"Yeah," Rick nods. Wrong decision because Daryl lunges at him, throwing punches. Rick avoids him and Daryl pulls a knife, starting to swing it at Rick. Shane quickly pins his arms behind his back and gets him to the ground in a headlock.

"You best let me go," Daryl yells.

"It's better if I don't," Shane reasons.

"Choke hold is illegal," Daryl fidgets in Shane's arms as Rick kneels in front of them.

"I'd like to have a calm discussion on this topic. You think you can manage that?" Rick repeats himself after Daryl doesn't respond and Shane finally lets him go. "What I did wasn't on a whim. Your brother doesn't work or play well with others."

"It wasn't Rick's fault," T-Dog says. He's going to get himself killed, "I had the key, but I dipped it."

"And you couldn't pick it up?"

"I dropped it down the drain."

"If that's supposed to make me feel better, it don't," Daryl throws some dirt as he gets up off the ground.

"Yeah, well maybe this will," T-Dog walks closer to him. "I chained the door shut so the geeks couldn't get at him."

"That's got to count for something," Rick reasons.

"To hell with all ya'll," Daryl yells and wipes his face off. "Just tell me where he is so I can go get him."

"He'll show you," Lori says from the door of the caravan. "You have a map, don't you?"

"I'm going back too," Rick says, looking down.

"Me too," I step forward, looking to Rick. "All of my stuff is in your car. If we're going to stay here, it's crutial that we get all of it back."

"And who the hell are you?" Daryl asks, looking at me.

"Beatrix," I turn to him. "I'm a doctor."

"Yeah, she's comin with us," Daryl looks around at everyone. "Merle might have an infection or somethin'."

Everyone starts going back to what they were doing before and I just kind of stand in the middle of everything, not knowing what to do.

"Beatrix," I turn around to see Lori walking my way. "Do you want a change of clothes? We can wash those for you while you're gone, if you're really going."

"Yeah, that would be nice," I smile. "I have to go though. While I was checking up on Rick, I managed to steal a lot of medical supplies and such from the hospital. I doubt they'll be needing it anymore, but we might. I need to get them back."

"Well, I wish you good luck," she smiles and hands me a change of clothes.

"Thank you," I smile back at her before heading to the tent I slept in last night to change clothes. I examine my blue scrubs after they're off of my body. They really are disgusting with dirt and blood splattered on them. I have no idea how they got in that bad of shape, but hopefully Lori can get them cleaned. Once I leave the tent, I hear Rick and Shane arguing.

"Now tell me, Rick, why you'd want to risk yours and Beatrix' lives for a douchebag like Merle Dixon?" Shane raises his voice.

"Hey, you better choose your words more carefully," Daryl warns.

"No. Douchebag is what I meant," Shane runs a hand through his hair and scoffs. "Merle Dixon wouldn't give you a glass of water if you were dyin' of thirst."

"I have no interest in what he would or wouldn't do for me," Rick hooks his fingers into his belt loops. "I just know that I can't let a man die like that. We left him up there like a caged animal. That's no way for anything to die, let alone a human being."

"So you, Daryl, and Beatrix? That's your big plan?" Lori questions from her spot on the ground. "No offense, Beatrix."

"None taken," I mutter, taking very much offense. I'll be fine with Daryl and Rick in the city.

"Well," Rick turns to look at Glenn.

"Oh come on," Glenn mutters, taking his cap off and running a hand through his hair.

"Look, I know it's not right of me to ask, but I'm sure that Beatrix and Lori would feel much better if you came along," Rick pleads. "You said so yourself, you can get in and out real quick without a problem. Please?"

"Fine," Glenn agrees and Shane let's out a huff of frustration.

"So now you're gonna risk four lives?"

"Five," T-Dog adds.

"Huh. My day just keeps gettin' better and better," Daryl huffs while, very aggressively, cleanin his arrows.

"I don't see anybody else volunteering to go save your brother," T-Dog fights back.

"Why you?" Daryl questions.

"You couldn't even begin to understand," T-Dog shakes his head. "You don't speak my language."

"Just know that you're puttin' everyone here at risk, Rick. Not just the four people you're draggin' into the city. C'mon, man, you saw that walker up here. We need every able body up here to protect this camp," Shane shouts.

"Seems to me that what you really need here is guns," Rick smirks.

"And medical supplies," I add in.

"What guns?" Shane demands. "What medical supplies?"

"Six shotguns, two high powered rifles, and over a dozen hand guns. I cleaned out the cage before I left home. Plus two suitcases and three duffle bags full of whatever medical supplies Beatrix brought. We had to ditch the car when we got swarmed. It's just sittin' there in the middle of the street waitin' to be driven away," Rick looked to me.

"Yeah, um, there's a lot of gauze and antibiotics. I could probably treat whatever injury anybody had with what's in the car," I explain.

"What kind of ammo you got?" Shane looked between us.

"Seven hundred rounds, assorted," Rick replies.

"You went through hell to find us," Lori throws down the shirt she was holding. "So now you're telling me that you're just gonna leave again?"

"I don't want you to go," Carl looks up at Rick with sad eyes.

"Shane's right," Lori says, getting out of her seat. "Merle Dixon? He isn't worth one of your lives even with guns and medical supplies thrown in."

"You don't understand," I step in, insulted that she doesn't comprehend how much use all of that stuff could be to us. "Lori, what's in that car could last us months and it could very well save yours or Carl's life one day. So please, just let us go. We'll come back to you in one piece."

Lori drops her head in defeat and Rick goes to talk to Carl. I fidget around a little, due to the odd glances I was getting from a few different people. I mean, I don't blame them because I haven't really spoken up yet, but still. At least try to make it discreet.

"C'mon girl, what are you waitin' for? We ain't got all day," I look up to see Daryl reaching his hand out to me from inside the van. I hesitantly take it and he hoists me up into the back before kicking the horn and screaming at Rick to hurry up. After a few moments of talking to Shane, Rick finally hops in and we start on our way.

"He best be okay," Daryl glares at T-Dog, breaking the silence we sat in the whole way here. "That's all I've got to say on the matter."

"I told you I locked the door," T-Dog rolls his eyes. "The geeks can't get at him."

"We walk from here," Glenn puts the cube van in park and we all jump out.

"Merle first or the car?" Rick asks after we make our way through a break in the fencing.

"Merle! We ain't even havin' this discussion," Daryl waves his crossbow around and I let out a small chuckle from beside of him. He shoots me a death glare and I immediately shut up.

"We are," Rick looks to Glenn. "You know the geography better. Merle or car?"

"Merle first, he's closer. Getting the car first would mean doubling back and we're gonna have a hard enough time as it is getting the car out of the city," Glenn shakes his head as we quietly make our way back to the department store.

"You are one ugly skank," Daryl says, shooting a lone walker in the head before removing his arrow and wiping it on his pant leg. We quickly scramble up the stairs to the roof and Rick cuts the padlock and chain off. Daryl throws it open, "Merle! Merle!"

I gasp as I walk over the little bridge to where Merle previously sat. Now, there was only an empty pair of bloody cuffs hanging from the pipe, a handsaw, and Merle's bloody, unattached hand.

"No, no no," Daryl scrunches his face up and begins kicking the ledge.

"Daryl," I place a hand on his shoulder, but he just smacks it away.


	4. Chapter 4: Grady

**Beatrix**

Daryl stomps around a minute longer and I go to examine Merel's unattached hand. There's not much blood, so I'm assuming that he used a tourniquet of some sort.

"I will not hesitate. I don't care if every walker in the city hears it," I hear Rick say. Once I turn around to see what's going on, Daryl is lowering his crossbow from T-Dog's face and Rick is lowering his gun from the side of Daryl's head.

"You gotta do-rag or somethin'?" Daryl asks T-Dog, who hesitantly hands him one. He then moves over to crouch down beside of me and picks up the hand, examining it, "Ain't that a bitch. The blade musta' been too dull for the cuffs."

"He had to have used a tourniquet to keep the bleeding down," I tell Daryl as he wraps the hand up in the rag from T-Dog and places it in Glenn's bag.

"No shit," he scoffs. I understand that he's in a bad situation right now, but he doesn't have to be unnecessarily rude.

We all silently follow Daryl to the other side of the roof and down another set of stairs while he screams Merle's name, hoping he'll just hop out of somewhere. I keep my knife held tightly in my left hand as we enter an office of some sort. Daryl takes out another lone walker before we make our way to another section.

"Had enough in him to take out these two sum' bitches one handed," Daryl mutters, jesturing to the two dead walkers lying on the floor. "Toughest asshole I've ever met, my brother. Feed him a hammer, he'd crap out nails."

"Any man could pass out from blood loss, no matter how tough he is," Rick countered. We continue following his trail to another room that looks like a kitchen.

"Aye, Merle!" Daryl shouts and Rick shushes him.

"We're not alone here, remember?"

"Yeah, but we gotta find Merle. He could be bleedin' out. Ya said so yourself," Daryl starts arguing with Rick when I notice something in the corner of the room.

"Oh god," I mutter, walking over to a lit stove. There's a metal iron with pieces of burnt skin sticking to it laid on the counter beside of it.

"What's that burnt stuff?" Glenn questions.

"Skin," I sigh. "He cauterized his stump."

"I told ya he was tough," Daryl looks at Rick. "Ain't nothin can kill Merle but Merle."

"I wouldn't take that on faith," I mutter, holding back a laugh at how terrible his word choice is.

"Didn't stop him from bustin' outta this death trap," Daryl ignores me, walking over to a shattered window. "He's alone as far as he knows. Went out there, survivin'."

"You call that survivin'? He could be out there passed out on the street for all we know," T-Dog scoffs.

"Better than bein' handcuffed to a roof and left to rot by you sorry pricks," Daryl starts getting angry again and I sigh in frustration. He turns to me, "What's wrong with you, huh? You're the doctor here. Tell me what kinda' chances he has out there with that wound of his."

"Well, he cauterized it do it shouldn't be bleeding so bad," I start, but then realize Daryl is giving me a 'come on, idiot, we already know that' type of look. "If he didn't lose too much blood before getting here, which it looks like he didn't, he shouldn't be passing out anytime soon. The heat probably killed any type of bacteria that got in, unless it was already in his bloodstream, then we'd have a problem. But that's not likely. If we could find him, I could give him antibiotics and try to monitor it to make sure he's fine."

"You heard the girl, let's go," Daryl holds his crossbow and starts walking towards the exit, expecting him to follow us.

"Wait, Daryl," Rick puts a hand up. "We can't go out on the streets. It's too dangerous."

"Like hell it is," Daryl swings his crossbow around, aiming it at nothing particular. "We're goin' to look for Merle and we best find him."

"Listen, I'll help you, but not without those guns," T-Dog crosses his arms. "I'm not about to go walkin' around those streets with just my good intentions."

"Same," I quietly say. "I don't feel safe with just my knife in a place like thus."

"You even know how to use a gun?" Daryl glares at me. "Ya barely

"Well, no, but I'd just feel safer if-" Daryl cut me off mid sentence.

"Then it don't matter if you got one or not! It ain't gonna help ya if ya ain't got a damn clue how to use it," Daryl yells, knocking some random cans off of a shelf.

"No, they're right," Rick tries to calm Daryl down. "We'll get the car, find another one on the streets, and ride around to look for him. You think you can handle that?"

"Yeah, whatever," Daryl mumbles. "Let's just get to it."

"Follow me," Glenn says, walking to an office room. "Like you all said, I know the geography. I can get to the car with the stuff without a problem."

"How?" Rick asks and Glenn ignores him for now. Glenn drops to the floor with a sharpie, drawing out a map of where we were. He grabbs some paper clips and post-its and begins using them to tell us his plan.

"Beatrix, Daryl and I will be in this alley way, and T-Dog and Rick will be in this one, two blocks down," Glenn explains.

"Why two blocks down?" T-Dog asks, taking a seat. "And why do you want Daryl and Beatrix with you?"

"If either of us can't make it back, we'll have a back up plan and can come down that way to you," Glenn uses his paper clips to show us. "I want them be with me because Daryl's crossbow is quieter than Rick's gun and Beatrix doesn't have a weapon. If she gets in trouble, I'd rather Daryl be protecting her than Rick. Like I said, quieter weapon. Anyway, Rick and T-Dog you'll just have to wait for me to come and get you in the car I hotwire. Beatrix, you'll have to run and get Rick's car. Once you've got it, you can drive back by and pick Daryl up. We'll take the north end of the city and you two take the south. We'll meet back up at the cube van in two hours."

"What do you mean I'll have to run to get Rick's car?" I ask quietly.

"It's not that far, you'll be fine," Glenn assures me and I nod. I really don't want to do it, but I know that I have to.

"We what are we waitin' on?" Daryl asks, getting up. He reaches me and hand and pulls me up too, "We need to get goin'. Merle could be out there lookin' for us right now!"

"Alright. Good luck, we'll see you in two hours," Rick says to Daryl, Glenn and I. We nod and make our way to the alley we're supposed to be at.

"Ya'll got balls for a Chinaman and a lady," Daryl grunts, pointing his crossbow out the fence, ready to shoot anything that may come near us.

"I'm Korean, you sexist shit," Glenn mutters before grabbing my right arm and running out into the street.

I grab my knife out of my belt with my left hand, and hold it high. As we ran, two walkers got a little too close to me, so I had to stab them. I cringed as I done it, but kept on running. Glenn finally lets go of my arm and I look at him in confusion.

"Go!" Glenn whispers, pointing at Rick's car. I nod and run towards it, taking out another walker on the way. Once I'm in, I slam the car door shut and start the ignition. It takes a second, but it finally starts and I drive off back to Daryl.

"Hurry up and get in!" I yell out the window I just rolled down. Daryl quickly jumps in and I hit the gas, driving away from the walkers that are trying to attack the car.

"Pull over right here and let me drive," Daryl orders.

"Don't tell me you're one of those people that think women can't drive," I scoff and continue driving until I have lost sight of the walkers following us.

"Just do it," he replies and I roll my eyes, but pull over anyway. If he wants to drive, he can drive. We quickly switch places and daryl takes off and rolls down the windows, "Start yellin' for Merle. Maybe he'll hear ya."

I done as he said for a little while as we drove as slow as we could down the streets without the walkers being able to get to us. Eventually, I got tired of tilting my head out the window and began to pull my feet up into the seat so I could sit on the car door.

"The hell are ya doin'?" Daryl cautiously asks me, only taking his eyes off the road for a second.

"I'm gonna sit on the window so I don't have to tilt my head. Slow down so I don't fall out," I say, pulling myself up so I'm squatting in the seat, waiting for him to slow down.

"You're gonna fall out," he warns as he slows down.

"I'll be fine. Just don't make any sharp turns. We've still got an hour and a half left before we have to meet the others," I pull myself up and plant my butt on the window with my legs still inside the car, holding onto the handle bar on the inside.

"Whatever," Daryl grumbles and speeds back up. We both continue to look for Merle, calling out his name every time we turn a street corner.

"Daryl, I don't think-" he cuts me off.

"Save it," he shushes me and I fall silent. "And why the hell is there a pole in the backseat?"

"It's an IV pole," I quietly say. "It might come in handy." We fall silent again until we turn another corner and see a hospital. It seems to have some survivors because there's people in cop uniforms working on cars in the parking lot behind a chain link fence.

"Get down in the car. Now," Daryl demands and I do as he says, again. "Think they could have Merle in there?"

"I dunno. Wanna ask 'em?" I suggest.

"Like hell I do," Daryl scoffs. "They'll probably try ta kill us."

"No they won't," I counter. "Stop the car and go ask if they've seen him."

"You're comin' with me," he grumbles, parking the car and getting out with his crossbow. I quickly grab one of the guns from the backseat and follow after him as he strides up to the hospital. Judging from the sign, it's called Grady Memorial.

"Hold up, there's no need to get violent. Just drop your weapons and we can talk," the female officer says from the other side of the gate, holding her hands up.

"Ya seen my brother anywhere?" Daryl keeps his bow pointed at the lady as the officers start to gather around. I keep my gun raised as well, fully aware that I have no idea how to work it.

"What does he look like? Does he have a name?" She gently asks him, I assume hoping we'll drop the weapons.

"Name's Merle, only got one hand. Just cut it off. You seen him?" Daryl pushes.

"Daryl, walkers are coming," I whisper to him, noticing the small group making their way towards us.

"If you lower your weapons, we'll let you in. We're not a threat to you," the woman tries to reason. I look to Daryl and he nods his head as the woman unlocks the gate and we slip through.

"Have you seen my brother?" Daryl yells, yet again. I gently place the gun in the wasteband of my pants and Daryl only slightly lowers his crossbow.

"I'm Dawn," the woman reaches out her hand and I shake it, Daryl just grunts. "You said your brother just cut off his hand?"

"Yeah. Now answer my damn question. You seen him?"

"No, I'm afraid I haven't," Dawn shakes her head. "Have you got a group? If you don't, you're more than welcome to stay here. We're looking for hands to help out around here. Especially people in the medical field, considering we are running a hospital."

"We'll I'm a d-" I start to tell her I'm a doctor, but Daryl interrupts.

"We've got our own group. We're gonna leave now too," he kicks some dirt and turns around, taking his knife out and stabbing the walkers through the fence that had gathered around.

"You're welcome to come back any time," Dawn calls as we leave the fence. "We'll try to look for your brother. I hope you find him!"

Daryl ignores her and gets back in the car, taking off as soon as I'm inside with my door shut. Two hours is almost up, so we begin making our way back to the cube van. When we got there, we had to wait about ten minutes, but eventually the car that Glenn had hotwired pulled onto the train tracks beside of us.

"You find him?" Daryl asks, getting out of the car.

"No," Rick shakes his head and Daryl punches the cube, letting out a string of curse words. "We need to get back to camp. It's getting dark."

"I'll take Beatrix and drive the car," Glenn volunteers and I nod. We all get back into the vehicles and drive back to camp. It's well past dark by the time we get there and pulling up the hill, we can her gunshots.

"Oh God," Glenn says, horrorstruck. There's a horde of walkers coming at all of the people in our camp, half of them already bitten. I quickly exit the car, grabbing the bag of guns and handing them out to Glenn, Daryl, Rick and T-Dog.

We run into the mess and I start giving out guns to the rest of the people. Shane looks furious as I hand him a shotgun, but I try to ignore it. After I've made sure everyone has a gun, I run to the RV, killing two walkers on the way. I drop down into one of the seats at the table and catch my breath.

"Are you bit?" Lori frantically asks me. "Is Rick alright?"

"No, I'm fine. No bites or scratches," I shake my head. "Rick's fine too. He's out there right now."

I pull my knees up to my chest and rest my head on them. My eyes go out of focus as everyone runs around in a panic and I'm just too lazy to put them back into focus. I don't know how long I sit there before I eventually fall asleep.

* * *

Hi there! I hope you're liking my story so far. Don't forget to leave me a review telling me what you thought! I appreciate all of your feedback :)


	5. Chapter 5: Jim

• **five•**

 **Beatrix**

I wake up the next morning to find everyone gone from the RV. I'm in the same position I fell asleep in, so I stretch out my muscles, expecting the crick I have in my neck. A small gasp escapes my lips as I walk outside, taking in the aftermath of the attack last night. Dead bodies litter the ground thoughout the camp, along with a small pile of burning bodies off to the side. Daryl is walking around, taking a pick axe to each body's head for safe measure, while Glenn, T-Dog, and Morales are pulling bodies into the fire.

"Good morning, Beatrix," Lori smiles weakly up at me and I give her a small nod in return. "Do you want something to eat?"

"That would be nice," I follow her over to the fire pit where there's a cooker with some type of meat in it. Lori hands me a bowl of it and I just eat it, not questioning it. "How many people did we lose?"

"A lot," Lori sighs. "Carol lost her husband and Andrea lost her sister."

"Amy?" I question, feeling slightly sad. Lori nods her head and points over to Andrea sitting by her sister's dead body.

"We need to put a bullet in that girl's brain and call it a day," Shane complains, sitting down on the log next to me and taking a bowl of the mystery meat.

"Shane, we need to let her grieve. If she reanimates, then we'll have to deal with her," I say and Shane just scoffs. He's clearly still upset about us leaving for Atlanta.

"Whatever man," he shakes his head and eats his meat from his bowl. While we're sitting down, Glenn has a small freak attack about burying our people and not burning them, and then Daryl screamed about how we had this coming because we left his brother for dead. I quickly finish up my food and go find Rick.

"Anything I can do?" I ask Rick, hoping that he won't make me stab any of the bodies in the head.

"Well, you could start-" he's cut off mid-sentence by Jacqui screaming.

"Jim's been bit! A walker got him," she stands up and points at him, backing away as if the disease was airborn and she would catch it just by breathing near him. Everybody begins to gather around the two of them.

"No, guys I'm okay. I promise," Jim grabs his shovel, holding it up in defense as Daryl runs at him. T-Dog quickly holds his arms down as Daryl lifts his shirt up, revealing a prominent bite mark on his abdomen. He continues to mutter, "I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay."

"C'mon," Shane grabbs Jim's arm and leads him to sit down on a crate behind the RV before returning to the small huddle of us to discuss his fate.

"I say we put a pickaxe in his head, and the dead girl's and be done with it," Daryl grunts, swinging his pickaxe back and forth.

"Is that what you'd want if it were you?" Shane asks.

"Yeah, and I'd thank ya while ya did it," Daryl replies, dropping the top of his axe to the ground.

"I hate to say it, never thought I would, but maybe Daryl's right," Dale sighs.

"No. Jim isn't a rabid dog, Dale. He's a sick, sick man. That's where we draw the line," Rick argues.

"I thought the line was pretty clear," Daryl says, getting more and more agitated. "Zero tolerance for walkers or those to be."

"What if we could get a cure? I heard the CDC was still up and running," Rick places his hands on his hips.

"Yeah, I heard a lot of things before the world went to hell," Shane scoffs. "Fort Benning is our bet shot. If there's any military protection left at all, it'll be there."

"I agree with Rick," I say. "I've been to the CDC, I even done some of my observations there. It should still be up and running."

"Yeah, well ya'll go look for some aspirin or whatever. Somebody needs to grow some balls around here and take care of this damn problem!" Daryl yells, raising his pickaxe and running at Jim, ready to swing.

"Hey! Hey!" Rick runs after him and pushes his gun to Daryl's forehead. "We don't kill the living."

"That sounds awful nice comin' from a man with a gun pointed at my head," Daryl knocks Rick's gun away and drops his pickaxe.

"This is not the way to handle things, Daryl," Shane steps inbetween Jim and Daryl.

"Wait," I run over to them. "In this condition, Jim won't make it halfway to the CDC. Maybe I could give him some blood thinners to keep him alive until we get there. Walker blood is thick and chunky, so if I give him blood thinners, his blood won't clot as fast. I might be able to save his life until we can get to the CDC for help."

"You seriously think that'll work?" Daryl laughs and I nod my head. "You're dumber than I thought ya were."

"Oh really? I'm dumb?" I scoff, offended. "Which one of us has the medical degree? Did you attend medical school for eight years? How about doing residency hours in the ER for two years? Maybe it was you that spent the last three years in trauma surgery, saving dozens of lives. I thought that was me, but maybe I got it mixed up. Maybe you're the one with all of the medical knowledge here, so why don't you try to save Jim. Go ahead, try your best to keep him alive. Then you can have the right to call me dumb. Otherwise, don't try to go there."

"I hope he turns and rips your damn neck out," Daryl spits at the ground beside of my feet and I felt a pinch of sadness inside. I don't understand how some people could say such awful things and be so inconsiderate of other people.

"Don't be rude to people who are only trying to help," I look up at him. He just waves his hand and walks off somewhere away from everyone else. It's silent for a few moments, but eventually Rick breaks it.

"So you really think that could help him?" Rick asks me.

"Yes and we're wasting time. The longer we talk about it, the lower chances he'll have of surviving," I explain and Rick nods.

"I'll get your things out of the trunk of the car. Get Jim in the RV and I'll bring it all to you," I nod and turn to Shane.

"Will you help him into the RV? He doesn't look very capable of walking it on his own," I ask nicely. Shane nods and wraps Jim's arm around his shoulders, helping him into the RV.

"Anything I can do to help you?" Jacqui comes up to me.

"Yeah," I nod. "Get an empty bucket, a pan with water, some type of wash cloth, and water for him to drink."

"I'll be back with it soon," Jacqui assures me and hurries off to get what I need. I quickly make my way into the back of the RV to where Jim is. He's half sitting up, propped up on the back wall, which is perfect for right now.

"Unbutton your shirt," I tell him, sitting down on the chair beside of the bed he's laying on. Rick and Glenn bring in all of the suitcases and duffle bags and sit them on the bed behind me. "Thank you. Can you get me the IV pole too?"

"I'll get it," Gelnn volunteers and Rick leaves after him. A couple minutes later he's back with it and I mutter a quick thanks before getting to work.

"Would you like an IV drop or an injection? The injection would be intramuscular," I ask Jim, wanting him to have choice in what happens.

"Which would hurt less?" He breathes out. I touch my hand to his forehead and he's already burning up.

"Probably the IV drip. I'm not a fan of intramuscular injections," I give a small laugh, trying to lighten the mood a little bit. It doesn't really help though.

"Then that's what I want," Jim says and I nod. This is my comfort zone. I'm comfortable with practicing medicine.

I rummage through the bags until I find everything I need. I slip my hands into a pair of latex gloves before dabbing the bend in his arm with rubbing alcohol. He winces as I slip the needle into his brachial vein and tape it down. I hook the bag of Lovenox onto the IV pole and set the drip speed in the tubing before hooking it into the needle, letting the medicine flow freely into his circulatory system. Jacqui gets back with the things I asked right before I started to clean the bite mark. She washes off his abdomen with the plain water and I douse it in rubbing alcohol right after. Jim sucks in a breath from the pain, but really though, it probably hurts super bad.

"I think it needs stitches," I mutter and grab a sterile needle and thread from one of my endless bags of medical supplies.

"Will it hurt?" Jim asks. I feel so bad for him and I want to minimize his pain, even thought I know how bad stitches hurt with no anesthetic.

"Probably. I can give you a painkiller, though I don't know how fast it'll kick in," I offer.

"I'll take it," Jim nods and I begin digging in my bags again, pulling out a couple of prescription strength ibuprofen and give them to Jim along with a bottle of water that Jacqui brought.

Jim lies flat on his back when I start stitching up his wound. He squirms, even though I told him not to, but I guess it's fine. I still managed to see him up fine with minimal bleeding, considering he's on a blood thinner right now. He still has a fever though and I need to worry about that. Taking the rag and dipping it in the pan of water, I dab off his chest and forehead in an attempt to cool him down.

"You need to stay laid down," I tell Jim while still dabbing off his forehead. "The last thing with need is for you to bleed out from a popped stitch. The ibuprofen should help with your fever too."

"I'm going to die, aren't I?" My heart drops at his question. I've gotten the same one from patients in the past and it's not pretty. I always have to give them the same bull crap docor response, especially if I know that they have little chance of survival.

"I'm going to do everything in my power to save you," I tell him, knowing that the odds are stacked against him. "I don't know what kind of effect the walker bite will have on your immune system though. The medication I've given you could help fight off the disease long enough for you to build anti-bodies for it, but I'm not sure. It would help me so much if I knew if it was an infection, fungus, bacteria..." I trailed off, thinking.

"Everything okay in here?" Rick walks into the RV and back to us. "We just got done burying everyone."

"We're doing fine," I give him a small smile. "I've stitched him up and got him on the medication that should help him. When are we leaving for the CDC?"

"Right now, actually," Rick sits down beside of the medical supplies on the bed behind me, so I have to turn around to look at him. "Are you alright with riding back here with him? Do you think you'll need any help?"

"Yeah, I'd love to stay back here and monitor his condition. If Jacqui isn't doing anything else I'd love for her to be here with us," I look to Jim and he nods in agreement.

"I'll let her know you want her. How are you feeling, Jim?"

"Not terrible yet," he weakly smiles and let's out a small cough.

"Good, good," Rick stands back up. "We better get going."

"Thanks, Rick," I lightly touch his hand before he leaves the RV and Jacqui comes in, taking his seat on the bed.

"Everybody okay back there?" Dale calls from the driver's seat.

"Yeah, we're good," I call back and lean against my seat, ready to go.

"You all should just leave me here," Jim breathes out. We stopped a few minutes ago because of something that had to do with the radiator hose in the RV, I'm not exactly sure though.

"Jim, your fever is down and we're almost there. You can do this," I smile and pat the cloth against his forehead again

"I don't want to be a burden on you any longer," he coughs and I look to Jacqui.

"You aren't a burden on us, Jim. We want to help you," she pats his knee and gives him a warm smile.

"Are you in any pain?" I ask. "I can give you something stronger than ibuprofen if you want."

"No, no. I'm good," Jim closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "Doesn't hurt much. I can make it."

We arrive at the CDC about an hour later, while the sun is setting. Everyone starts filing out of the cars and up to the entrance except for Glenn, Jacqui, Jim and I. Glenn stayed behind with us to help carry Jim in, seeing as he's not in well enough shape to do it himself.

"I'll old his IV if you guys can help move him in. I'll have to carry the bags too," I suggest and Glenn and Jacqui nod before helping Jim up and maneuvering him out of the RV.

I make sure to grab only my bag of clothes because the CDC should have medical supplies in there. There's no need to bring mine in, and if we have to leave in a hurry we'll still have everything. I let out an involuntary gag as I step out of the vehicle behind the others, still clutching the IV bag. The smell of the walkers and dead bodies is so overwhelming it's making me dizzy.

"This doesn't look too good," Glenn sighs as we hear Rick and Shane screaming at eachother in the distance. The metal entrance door lifts open and we watch everyone shuffle inside. By the time we approach the doors, the men are running back outside to the cars.

"Daryl!" I grab his arm as he runs by me, seeing as he's the last one that I could catch. "Can you bring the IV pole from the caravan please?"

"Sure," he grunts and runs off. We get inside the building and a man immediately approaches us.

"Is this the one infected?" He asks as if Jim isn't even there. I nod my dead anyway and he smiles, "Excellent. When they get back, you all can follow me. I'd like to perform some tests on him if that's fine."

"Ask him and see," I gesture to Jim. "It's not up to me."

"You can do whatever you need," Jim breathes out as the men run back in and slam the metal barricade back down.

"Let's go," the man waves his hand and leads us all to an elevator, which we take down to the lowermost level of the facility.

"Are we underground?" Carol asks, nervous.

"Why? Are you claustrophobic?" Jenner let's out a small laugh. Dick.

"Try not to think about it," he smiles again and leads us down to the main control room, telling us about how it's only him left here and nobody else, then taking us to a room to draw blood. "I'd like to get Jim's first and every hour after that, up until the point of death."

"Only if we can't figure out a cure, right?" I give the man a look and he catches what I'm saying.

"Yeah..." he trails off and begins takin everyone's blood. I walk over to the rows of chairs and sit myself down between Glenn and Daryl.

"Glenn, are you alright?" I ask him, putting a hand to his forehead. "You have no color in your face."

"Don't like needles," he shakes his head and I let out a small laugh.

"You shouldn't be afriad of them. They don't even hurt that bad," I tell him and turn to look at Daryl. "You afraid of needles too?"

"I ain't afriad of nothin'," he growls and gets up, going to get his blood drawn.

"Is he always so rude?" I ask Glenn and he just nods. He looks like if he opens his mouth, he'll throw up. I've never understood the fear that people have of needles. They aren't very painful and they could quite possibly save your life. Then again, I've never been afraid of anything medical that could save my life.

"Beatrix," someone calls my name. I turn around to see that it's Daryl and he's done, "Your turn.

"Oh," I say more to myself, walking up to the man and sitting down. "Doctor Beatrix Zedler."

"Doctor Edwin Jenner," he shakes my hand and I reach my arm out for him to put the needle in. "So you're the one that's kept Jim alive this long?"

"Yeah," I wince as he inserts the needle, but then relax. "We thought that maybe you had a cure or at least some answers?"

"I've been trying, but I accidentally blew up my latest samples earlier today" he sighs and begins taking my blood. "We could use Jim though, that is if you're willing to help me?"

"Of course," I nod. "I'd love to see everyone's blood test results too. Could you hook me up with a copy?"

"Sure thing. Just meet me in the control room after dinner," he removes the needle from my arm and tells me to send Glenn over.

"Want me to hold your hand?" I tease Glenn as he shakily walks over to Jenner. He flips me off in response and I laugh.

"Are you okay?" Jenner asks him as he stands up and almost falls over. I catch him and keep him from falling though.

"He hasn't eaten in days," I inform Jenner and he tells us to follow him again. This time, he leads us all to the cafeteria to prepare a meal.

* * *

Hi, I just wanted to say thank you for reading my story! I appreciate every favorite, follow and review I get. I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

I also just wanted to tell everyone to check out bloodroseroxas story _Protecting Love_. It's a Bethyl AU, and I beta it for her. It's a really good story and I would highly recommend reading it if you love Bethyl as much as we do!


	6. Chapter 6: CDC

**Beatrix**

"You know, in Italy, children have a little bit of wine with their dinner," Dale laughs, pouring Lori more whine. "And in France."

"And when Carl is in Italy or France, he can have some too," Lori covers Carl's glass with her hand.

"Oh come on, what could it hurt?" Rick chuckles from beside her. She shrugs, moving her hand from the cup. Dale laughs and pours Carl some wine, all of us watching intently waiting for his reaction.

"Ewww!" He makes a face as if he's tasted something sour and we all let out laughs.

"That's my boy," Lori ruffles his hair and Dale returns to his seat. I'm sitting back on the counter, once again, between Daryl and Glenn. Though Daryl is up right now, getting more whiskey.

"We all need to slow down," T-Dog jokes.

"Except for you, Chinaman. I wanna' see just how red your face can get," Daryl points at Glenn, laughing. Glenn blushes and looks down in response.

"We haven't properly thanked our host yet," Rick stands up and holds his glass up, tilting it to Jenner.

"Booyaaaah!" Daryl pumps his fist in the air, jumping back up onto the counter beside of me. Everyone follows him, letting out claps and yells for Jenner.

"Now hold up a minute," Shane holds his hand up.

"Shane, not now," Rick shoots him a glare.

"No, we came here for answers, man. Where are all the other doctors? Why is it just you here?" Shane asks.

"When things started to get bad, many people left to be with their families. Others couldn't handle walking out the door," Jenner shakes his head. "They chose to opt-out, as to put it nicely. There was a rash of suicides."

"Way to kill the mood," I shake my head and take another drink out of the now half empty bottle of wine in my hand.

"We should all probably get some rest," Rick suggests and everyone agrees, getting up and following Jenner.

"Most of the facility has been shut down, including housing, so you'll have to stay here. The couches are comfortable, but there are cots in storage if you'd like," Jenner walks down the hallway, gesturing to the different rooms. "There's a rec room at the end of the hall that you kids might enjoy, just don't plug in anything that will take power. Same goes for the showers, try to take it easy on the hot water."

"Did he just say hot water?" Glenn asks, smiling as Jenner walks away.

"You heard the man," I surprise myself by actually saying what I was thinking out loud and wiggling my eyebrows. "Conserve water, shower together."

"Let's go then," Daryl surprises me even more my picking me up and throwing me over his shoulder, walking down the hall ahead of everyone else.

"I didn't mean that I'm drunk!" I yell, hitting his back. I did not peg him to be a fun drunk, and I just hope he's not serious. "Daryl, put me down!"

"You're the one that suggested it, sweetheart," he opens a random door and slams it shut. I can hear everyone hollering from outside and I finally go limp and blush against his back.

"Can you put me down now?" I ask him.

"Mhmm," he drops me down onto a couch and sits down on the one across from me.

"You know I didn't mean that, right?" I arch my eyebrow and he nods.

"I know. Just thought it'd be funny," he shrugs and takes a sip of the bottle of Jack Daniels he'd brought from the cafeteria. "You can sleep in here if you want. We got two couches."

"Thanks," I pull my bag off my shoulders and sling it onto the floor. "I'm sorry about earlier today. When I went off on you about Jim. That was uncalled for and rude."

"Yeah, it was," he scoffs and I roll my eyes.

"You could be a doctor for all I know," I shrug and throw my legs onto the couch, leaning back against a pillow. "Are you?"

"Yeah, I'm a doctor and T-Dog is white," he rolls his eyes and I fail at holding back a laugh.

"Daryl, that's terrible!" I reach over to smack his arm, but then realize he isn't close enough to me for me to do that, so I just let my arm hang off the side of the couch.

"They both have the same likeliness of bein' true," he kicks off his boots and props his legs up on the couch, copying my same position. Silence falls between us for a few minutes before I decide to break it.

"I'm sorry about your brother too," I say, looking over at him.

"Don't," he warns.

"No, I really am. And I think he could be at that hospital with those cops, you know?" I can tell I'm making him mad, but I don't stop. "They probably found him, cause we didn't."

"Drop it," he takes another sip of his whiskey.

"Whatever," I stand up, grabbing my bag. "I'm going to shower first."

"Thought we were supposed to conserve water?" He smirks at me from the couch.

"I'm not that drunk, Daryl," I laugh and open the door to the bathroom to take my shower.

I totally forgot about Jenner telling me to meet him in the control room. Also, I'm not so sober right now, so I take a quick cold shower in an attempt to sober up. I wrap myself in one of the robes on the shelf and slip my feet into a pair of house slippers and walk back out to the room with the couches.

"Daryl, I'm out," I say, patting my hair with a towel, trying to dry it. He doesn't respond, so I walk over to him and see that he's passed out. I slap his face a little, "Daryl, get up. You stink and you need a shower."

"Go away," he mumbles and turns over. I shrug my shoulders and take off down the hall. If he wants to stink, who am I to stop him?

"Hey, Beatrix," Rick smirks at me. "I was just talking to Jenner. You and Daryl have a good time?"

"Go home, Rick, you're drunk," I laugh and push him off down the hallway.

"I thought you'd never come," Jenner calls once I finally enter the room.

"I took a shower," I gesture to my robe and he nods. "Got any aspirin? I'm not fully sober."

"Yeah, sure," he rummages through a desk drawer and hands me a bottle. "I got the blood results back. Everything is normal."

"Let me see," I sit down and he hands me a copy of the blood test results. "Can I keep these?"

"If you want to," I quickly fold them and stuff them into the robe pocket. "Let's go back to Jim and see if we can find out something about this stupid disease."

"Did you bring him something to eat?" I ask. I didn't remember seeing Jim at dinner, but then also remembered that Jenner said he was going to take him to a quarantine room 'just in case'.

"Yeah, he should be done eating now though and we can do whatever tests we need," Jenner makes his way through many different doors, swiping his ID card and typing in a number each time. I remember having to do this when I did observations here; it wasn't very convenient.

"I was thinking," I push my wet hair behind my ear. "Maybe I could take the person with the highest white count and maybe help them build up a resistance to the disease. Give them anti-bodies and essentially make them immune."

"That might actually work," Jenner agrees while opening the door to Jim's room. He was sleeping and I automatically feel a wave of guilt wash over me. We caged him up in here like an animal with nobody to keep him company and he's on his deathbed. "We'll have go wake him up."

"Well, let's get to work," I mumble and begin shaking Jim's shoulders.

I stumble down the hallway, back to where the rest of the group is. It's four thirty in the morning and Jenner and I just decided to turn in and stop running tests on Jim. Jim was ecstatic, seeing that he finally got to go back to sleep and we finally stopped poking at him. It was all for a good cause though, we could potentially find a cure.

I open a few doors, seeing a few too many sleeping people before I finally stumble upon the one with Daryl in it. I find some pillows and blankets on the closet and lay them out on the couch so I don't freeze to death, like Daryl looks like he is. He's shivering and I sigh, taking a blanket and draping it over his sleeping body. He's not too bad, and you need to be nice to everybody.

A yawn escapes my lips as I slip underneath the covers I draped over the couch, not bothering to put any actual clothes on. The robe is comfy enough and I'm asleep pretty much as soon as my head hits the pillow.

"Get your ass up if you want to eat," I felt Daryl throw a pillow at me.

"What time is it?" I groan and sit up, stretching my limbs.

"Hell if I know," he scoffs. "Like eight?"

"Great," I grumble and get up off the couch, tightening my robe around me.

"You put that blanket on me last night after I was already asleep?" Daryl angrily asks me. "'Cause I sure as hell don't remember doing it."

"Yeah? I thought you'd get cold so I-"

"I don't need you tryin' to take care of me and I definitely don't need your help. Might as well stop being so damn nice while you're ahead," Daryl snaps and my eyes widen in surprise.

"I was only trying to do something nice," I look down at my feet. "I didn't mean to make you mad I'm sorry."

"Whatever," he grunts and leaves the room. I quickly throw on a pair of jeans and a random shirt and head back down to the cafeteria.

"Morning, Beatrix!" Carl smiles, "Are you hung-over too? Mom said almost everyone would be."

"Yeah, I kind of am," I laugh and ruffle his hair, taking a seat between him and Glenn. "I have a killer headache and staying up most of the night didn't help too much."

"What were you doing up all night?" Rick shoots me a smirk and wiggles his eyebrows. "I remember seeing you in just a robe last night, walking out of Daryl's room. Does that have anything to do with it?"

"No, oh my God. I was helping Jenner do experiments. We were trying to see if we could figure this whole thing out," I shake my head and take some of the aspirin from the bottle on the table.

"Did you figure anything out?" Andrea asked.

"Not much. Just got the blood tests back and everything," I tell them while attempting to eat some eggs T-Dog had given me. "Jim's white count is completely gone. He isn't going to last much longer."

"He didn't," Jenner says, walking in the room. "I stayed with him for a little bit after you went to bed. He passed at about five this morning."

"I don't mean to bombard you with questions first thing in the morning, Doc-" Dale starts, breaking the silence from the announcement of Jim's death.

"But you will anyway," Jenner pours himself a cup of coffee.

"We didn't come here for the eggs," Andrea butts in. Jenner motions for us to follow him back to the control room and we do.

"Vi playback TS-19," he commands and Vi complies.

"Those electrical impulses are everything that makes up you," Jenner explains what's happening on the screen, but I tune him out. We already went over this last night, but soon he starts talking about Jim and I tune back in, "I think Beatrix was onto something with giving him blood thinners. It could potentially lead to a cure in the future, but as of right now, we're completely clueless. Maybe we could get somewhere with it if we weren't going to run out of time."

"Ah man I'm gonna' get shitfaced drunk again," Daryl rubs his hands over his face.

"You said we were going to run out of time," Dale speaks up from the back and points to the clock on the wall. "Would that happen to have anything to do with that clock over there?"

"Well-" Jenner starts, but Shane cuts him off.

"What happens when the clock gets to zero?"

"The basement generators run out of fuel," Jenner mutters and turns on his heel, leaving everyone standing there in confusion. Except for me, because I know what's going to happen.

"We're gonna' go check the basement. Come on!" Rick yells and runs off toward the basement, taking Shane, Glenn and T-Dog with him.

"You know something," Daryl points at me. "You're chewin' on your fingernails. What happens when that clock hits zero?"

"Facility-wide decontamination," I push my hair behind my ear. "Before anyone is allowed to work or observe here, you have to take a couple of classes on C.D.C. safety. I took it and I remember. In the case of a catastrophic event, once the generators run out of fuel, there will be a facility wide decontamination."

"What does that mean?" Andrea asks me.

"We need to go pack our things. Just get everything you need and come back down here as soon as you're done," I speak to everyone. "We only have forty-three minutes left."

"But what happens-" Andrea starts to ask, but I don't let her finish.

"Really, we don't have time to argue. Just go," I attempt to say as nicely as possible, though I'm getting very frustrated right now. Everyone follows me as I walk down the hall as quickly as I can to the room I slept in last night.

"The hell happens when the clock hits zero?" Daryl stops me, grabbing my arm and forcing me to look at him.

"I already told you," I shake my head and try to turn away, but he won't let me.

"No, that ain't all. Tell me the rest," he demands. I look down at my feet, but he uses his other hand to force my face to look at him. "Right now, Beatrix."

"HITs will be released to prevent anything from getting out," I mutter, trying to look anywhere but his eyes. I know exactly what's going to happen, I just don't want to admit it. Because admittance is acceptance and I don't want to die like that.

"Stop beatin' around the bush and just spit it out," Daryl still hasn't let go of my arms and I know I have to tell him.

"The place is going to blow up," I sigh and let fear overwhelm me.

"Dammit!" He finally lets go of me and runs a hand through his hair. "You serious?"

"I wish I wasn't," I shake my head and continue throwing my things together.

"Like hell I'm gonna' die that that. That'll be the day," Daryl scoffs and grabs my arm again. He reminds me of Merle when we were on the roof just a few days ago. "Come on, we gotta' get the hell out of here."

"We have to get the others too, Daryl," I stop him and he nods his head, releasing my arm. "I'll get everyone back to the control room and you get Rick and meet us there."

"Grab my shit," he motions to his bag lying on the couch and takes off. I roll my eyes at him, but I do it anyway. He's not very nice to me, or anyone for that matter, but I think he's just scared. I won't ever say that to him though.

"Lori!" I call, walking out in the hall with both bags on my back. "Lori hurry up, we have to go now."

"Why? What happened?" Lori pokes her head out of a room and I run towards it. Carol, Sophia and Carl are in there too.

"Daryl went to go find Rick," I try to be as calm as possible. "You guys just need to get your things and get to the control room as quick as you can."

"What's-" Carol starts, but I stop her.

"Please don't ask questions. I'm trying to save your life," I plead with them and they nod their heads. "Can you guys get Shane, T-Dog, and Glenn's things too?"

"Of course," Carol gives me a slight smile and I give her one back before muttering a 'thank you' and running back to the hallway to tell everyone else that it's time to go.

I gather up Dale, Andrea, Jacqui and everyone else that was upstairs and ushered them down to the control room so that we could find Rick and get out of here. Walking by the room that we got our blood drawn in, I remembered that we left Jim's IV pole in there and I quickly ran in there to get it. Once I had it, I quickly wheeled it down to the control room to find everybody screaming.

"Thirty minutes to decontamination," the computer voices as I walk down the stairs. Alarms start blaring and the doors behind me close.

"Did you just lock us in here?" Daryl yells at Jenner and runs at him. I'm sure he would actually kill him if people hadn't held him back.

"Wait, no! No, don't do it," T-Dog steps in and tries to calm Daryl down. Shane picks him up and pulls him away from Jenner, Daryl still swinging.

"Jenner, let us out," Rick goes up to Jenner as I finally make it down to everyone else.

"Top exits are sealed shut. I can't open them, that's just something that the computers control," Jenner explains to everyone. "I told you once the front door closed, it wouldn't open again; you heard me say it. It's better this way."

"What is?" Rick yells, throwing something off a random desk. "What happens in twenty-eight minutes?"

"Do you know what this place is?" Jenner jumps out of his seat and starts yelling as well. "We've protected the public from very nasty stuff. Weaponized smallpox! Ebola strains that couple take out half the country! Stuff you don't want getting out, ever!" Jenner fixes his lab coat and sits back down, taking a deep breath. "In the event of a catastrophic power failure, a terrorist attack for example, HITs are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out."

"What's a HIT?" Rick asks.

"Ask your friend, Beatrix. She knows, she's been here before. She took the safety course, she knows exactly what this place is and what's going to happen," Jenner says and all eyes fall on me. "Go on, say it."

"A HIT," I try to swallow the lump in my throat. "is a high-impulse thermo baric fuel-air explosive that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive, except nuclear. They're used in cases looking for the greatest amount of damage to be done. It sets the air on fire."

"Beatrix, you knew this and you didn't tell us?" Shane yells at me.

"I told Daryl," I point to him, hoping he won't throw me under the bus like Jenner did.

"She did," Daryl nods. "I came down here to get ya'll as soon as she did so we could get out, but this jackass locked us in."

"There's no pain. It's an end to everything," Jenner says. Everyone falls silent, either crying or attempting to break the doors down.

"Open the damn door!" Daryl screams at Jenner, who just ignores him. He then moves towards me, "Beatrix you give me that damn pole right now."

"What? No," I clutch my IV pole in my hand as he tries to take it from me. "Stop it, you might break it!"

"We're about to die and you're worried about me breakin' your stupid magic pole of medicine?" Daryl yells at me, still attempting to get the pole out of my grasp.

"Okay, one, rude. Two, it is not stupid," I start to yell back at him, but he finally gets my hands pried off of the metal and runs back to the door, hitting it with my IV pole. "Daryl, stop it!" I run at him, but I don't get too close because I don't want to end up getting accidentally hit.

"Out of my way!" Shane runs past Daryl and I with an axe in his hands and begins chopping at the door with it. T-Dog quickly hands one to Daryl, who wastes no time in joining Shane. I quickly retrieve my pole and make my way back over to the rest of the women.

"We don't deserve do die like this," Carol sobs and I drop to the ground next to her.

"You know what's out there," Jenner turns on his chair to look at us. "A short, cruel life and an agonizing death. Is that really what you want for your wife and son, Rick?"

"I don't want this," Rick spits as Shane walks over.

"I can't make a dent in it," he wipes the sweat from his forehead.

"Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher," Jenner states.

"Yeah, well your head ain't!" Daryl runs at Jenner with his axe held high, fully ready to swig at him, but Dale and Rick catch him and make him stop.

"There's no point in trying to escape your inevitable death. This _will_ take us down. It's our extinction event," Jenner says, looking around at all of us.

"This isn't right, Jenner. You know it isn't," I stand up and push my hair behind my ear. "You have to let us out, let us have a chance. You said it yourself that I was onto something. I could end this, given the time and the resources. Why would you want to waste that opportunity by locking me up in here and killing me? It's not right, Jenner, and you know it."

"You're right," he sighs and begins punching buttons on the control keypad on the desk. "I can't open the topside doors, you already know that. But now you have your chance."

"Thank you," I tell him before gathering all of my things and running to the door like everybody else. Jacqui, Andrea and Dale stay behind while the rest of us attempt our escape.

"Daryl, Shane," Rick calls for the two men, who begin hacking away at the windows once we made our way back to the entrance.

"Rick, I have something that might help," Carol steps forward, rummaging through her purse. My fingernails are probably long gone by now due to my nervous biting.

"Carol, I don't think a nail file is really gonna' help us right now," Shane shakes his head, but Carol ignores him and pulls out a grenade that looks exactly like the ones Rick and I had in the middle of the city.

"I found it in your pocket when you first got to camp and I washed your clothes. Knew it could come in handy," she smiles and hands it to him.

"Everybody get back!" Rick motions us all back towards a wall. My IV pole is safely in front of me and my body is hunkered down between a wall and Glenn. I watch as Rick pulls the pin and runs back to us. The grenade detonates and the glass shatters.

"Come on," Shane yells as everyone follows him out the window. There's been so much yelling and confusion today.

"Oh no," I whisper as I realize that fitting the pole out the window isn't going to be very easy. My hands are gripped around it, trying to pull it out when someone announces the presence of walkers.

"Just leave it!" Daryl growls at me, motioning for me to hurry.

"No! It could come in handy," I argue and continue pulling on it.

"Dammit, you're gonna' get us killed," Daryl shoots an arrow at a walker who was getting too close and shakes his head. He turns around and runs back to me, yanking the pole through the window and handing it back to me. He then grabs my arm again. Everybody else is already in the cars and Dale is making his way out of the building with Andrea. "Don't pull it, just carry it and run."

My fear escalates as I remember that the time is almost up and the building is going to blow any second. I run as fast as my legs will take me, Daryl pulling me right behind him. Once we're close enough to his truck, he takes the pole from me and throws it into the bed of the truck. He quickly throws open the passenger door and shoves me into the floorboard, jumping in and shutting the door right after. He lays half on the seats, and half over me as I feel a wave of heat pass over us. The sound of the building collapsing fills my ears while my face is pressed down on the dirty truck floorboard.

"Ya alright?" Daryl asks after everything goes silent. He's already sitting up in the driver's seat and is pulling me out of the floor.

"Mhmm," I nod my head and push my hair behind my ears again.

"You're a dumbass, you know that right?" He starts the truck up and begins driving after everyone else. "Riskin' your damn life for a metal rod on wheels."

"It's important to me," I shrug my shoulders and pull my bag off of my back, laying it onto the seat between us. "Why'd you risk your life to save mine?"

"Didn't want your blood on my hands," he shrugs simply. "Seen you strugglin' and couldn't let you just die."

"Oh," I mumble and pull my legs up to my chest and lay my head against the window. Pretty soon I drifted off to sleep.


	7. Chapter 7: Sophia Peletier

**Beatrix**

My body jumps from being startled and I almost fall out of the truck. Before my butt leaves the seat though, someone catches me and pushes me back into a sitting position. I flutter my eyes open to see Daryl standing there with an annoyed expression on his face.

"Ya gotta get out. I'm ditchin' the truck because it's not good on gas," he explains while I grab my bag and hop out of the blue pickup.

"Where are you gonna ride then?" I question as he pulls my pole out of the truck bed and sits it down beside of me.

"Merle's motorcycle. Already filled it up and everything. Everyone's ready to go," Daryl pushes me towards the RV and I take the hint that I can't ride with him anymore. Not that I'd want to anyway. He's rude and he doesn't talk much. I'm not a huge fan of rude people.

"Hey, Dale," I smile, walking up to the RV. "Got room for one more?"

"Of course," Dale pats my shoulder and ushers me in the RV. "You can just put your stuff in the back with the medical supplies."

"Thank you, Dale," I climb into the RV and set my bag and IV pole in the back room, then sit down at the table beside of Shane. "What are you guys doing?"

"Cleaning guns," Shane mumbles. "You know how to shoot?"

"No. I never really felt the need to learn," I shrug. It's true; I've never tried to shoot one. I don't even like holding one.

"When we get somewhere safe, I'll teach you," Shane throws an arm around my shoulders. "After all, I am a licensed instructor."

"Sounds like fun," I do my best fake smile and he buys it. Shooting a gun is something I would rather not do. Ever.

"Stupid radiator hose," Dale angrily puts the RV in park and turns off the key. Shane, Andrea, Glenn and I follow him out of the RV listening to him rant, "I told you all that that hose wouldn't last no time."

"Well if we can't find a hose in this place, we'll never find one," Shane shakes his head, looking around. We're in the middle of a freeway full of abandoned cars.

"We can scavenge here," Rick says. "Siphon some fuel and get these cars out of the way to fit the RV through and head on to Fort Benning."

"I don't know how I feel about this," Lori holds a hand over her eyes, blocking out the sun. "This is a graveyard."

"I don't like it," I agree with Lori. "Taking things from here just doesn't feel right."

"We could find medicine and bandages in the cars," Rick looks at me, knowing that I'll agree.

"I'll look for the medical supplies," I change my mind and take walk off to find a car that looks promising.

"If I see any medicine in these cars, how will I know which ones to take?" T-Dog asks from behind me. He's siphoning gas from the car beside of mine.

"Take them all," I tell him. "We can use everything we find at some point or another. That's the beauty of medicine; one pill could treat dozens of different diseases. We shouldn't let any go to waste."

"Alright then," he nods his head and moves into another car.

God, this is morbid. As I rummage through each bag and suitcase, I think about what happened to the person it belonged to. Obviously they're dead, but I just wonder how it happened. Maybe they died of some disease that wasn't a walker bite, but I'll never know. After not finding anything other than a box of Band-Aids and some peroxide, I move to the next car.

"Oh shit," I hear T-Dog whisper from nearby. "Beatrix!"

"Yeah?" I whisper, running to where he was. He was sat down beside of a car with his arm sliced open and his radial artery pumping blood out. "Oh God, how'd you manage that?"

"Shhh you have to be quiet," he breathes out. "There's a bunch of them coming towards us. You need to hide."

"What? No, I need to get your arm fixed," I drop down beside of him and rip my top shirt off, leaving me in a tank top. He winces when I wrap it around his arm and push down hard.

"I've got it from here. They're getting close, now go get under that truck," he points with his good arm at a delivery truck not too far away.

"I'm not leaving you by yourself with an injury like this," I shake my head and notice a walker slowly walking towards us. Standing up, I hesitantly reach for my knife that's strapped to my left leg, but Daryl beats me to it.

"Why the hell aren't you under a truck?" He hisses at me.

"T-Dog is hurt and I can't leave him by himself," I motion to T-Dog on the found beside of me. He's breathing heavily and keeping pressure on his right arm.

"You're an idiot, Beatrix," Daryl huffs and drags T-Dog so he's laying down on the blacktop. He quickly throws the walker he killed on top of him and telling him to say quiet. Then he grabs my arm and pulls me never to the truck T-Dog pointed out, forcing me under it and sliding in beside of me.

"Daryl, he needs-" I begin to explain that T-Dog is going to need stitches soon, but he doesn't let me finish. He wraps his arm around my head and covers my mouth with his hand.

Pairs of feet begin shuffling past us, their moans and groans becoming louder with each step. Instinctively, I scoot closer to Daryl when their footsteps get closer to the side of truck. He tightens his grip on me while the heard passes. What feels like hours, but was probably only twenty minutes, later, the feet stop passing by and Daryl removes his hand from my mouth, but leaves his arm slung over me.

"Do you think they're gone?" I ask him with my cheek pressed against the blacktop.

"Give it a few minutes. Make sure they're all gone," Daryl whispers. A couple of minutes later he pokes his head out from under the truck, then pulls the rest of his body out, "Come on, you can help him now."

"Finally," I sigh and shuffle out from underneath the delivery truck. I quickly make my way back over to T-Dog and pull the dead walker off of him, "Are you okay? Can you feel your arm?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm dizzy though and-" T-Dog starts to talk, but he passes out before he can finish.

"Great," I mumble and remove my shirt from his arm to see if the bleeding has stopped. It hasn't, so I wrap it back on and tie it as tight as I can because I can't hold it right now. I move his body the best that I can so that his feet are propped up above his head, just in case he was in shock.

"Beatrix? Do you need any-" Daryl stops as soon as he looks down at T-Dog. "He dead?"

"No, no," I shake my head and continue to apply pressure to his arm. "He passed out, probably from blood loss, maybe from shock. I don't know, but I need to get him somewhere better than lying on the blacktop. It's probably not the best place to give stitches."

"I'll get Shane," Daryl mumbles and walks off. A minute later he returns with Shane. They both pick him up and walk with him towards the RV.

"Try to keep his legs elevated!" I call and follow after them. Soon enough they have him in the RV and they quickly disappear.

They didn't even keep his legs elevated, how rude. I grab all of the available pillows and stuff them under his legs before checking on the bleeding again. It's stopped, which is great. My medicine bags are still on the bed behind me, so I rummage through them until I find what I need for his arm. The peroxide bubbles when I pour it in, which is a good sign. It means I'm getting all of the infection out before it has the time to properly set in. I quickly stitch the cut shut and finish off by wrapping it in gauze because nobody wants to see that. When I'm all done, I leave him and head outside to see what everybody else is doing.

"Guys?" I question, looking around at everyone. They're all deathly quiet and Daryl, Rick, and Carol's daughter, Sophia, are missing. "What happened?"

"Sophia ran off into the woods trying to get away from a walker," Lori quietly informed me, pulling me away from Carol. "Rick went straight after her, but now they can't find her. He said he told her to stay put, but when he went back she wasn't there. Carol isn't in the best state right now."

"That's terrible," I sigh and shake my head. "So Daryl and Rick are out looking for her?"

"Mhmm," Lori nods and starts going through one of the cars. "Daryl's a good tracker and Rick's had a lot of experience with stuff like this. We should be able to find her."

"I hope we do," I smile and begin digging through cars with her.

Hours later, once it's almost dark, Rick and Daryl returns from their hunt for Sophia. I had gathered as much medical supplies as I could and stuffed it all into a crate and was very pleased with how much I actually got.

"Did you find my baby?" Carol asks them as they walk towards us. We're all gathered around, waiting for answers because Sophia was obviously not with them.

"No, but-"

"You can't leave my baby out there to spend the night by herself! She's just a child," Carol cries out.

"Lookin' in the dark would be even worse. We'd just be trippin' over ourselves. Probably get more of us lost too," Daryl looks at her sympathetically. I'm surprised that Daryl's showing any emotion other than anger or annoyance.

"Is that blood?" Carol points at Daryl's pants. Not sure why she was looking at his pants, but I wasn't going to question it. None of us were, I don't think.

"We ran into a walker," Rick explains. "There's no proof that it was anywhere near your little girl."

"How can you know that?" Andrea asks.

"We cut the son of a bitch open," Daryl tells her. "We can look some more in the mornin'."

"Everybody get some rest. We'll head out first thing tomorrow," Rick orders and everybody scatters out. I walk over to one of the cleaner cars I went through and curl up in the backseat, drifting off to sleep.

"Everybody takes a weapon," Rick rolls out an entire arsenal on the hood of a random car.

"These aren't the kind of weapons we need," Andrea complains. I shrug and take out a machete. Guns aren't necessary, so it doesn't really bother me, but Andrea is honestly getting a little annoying.

"We've already been over this, Andrea. Rick, Daryl and I will be the only ones carrying," Shane sighs.

"I want my gun," Andrea puts her hands on her hips.

"Rick and I are licensed to carry anyway, and Daryl knows what he's doing. We don't need people popping off rounds every time a bush shakes," Shane explains. I tune them out as they argue and begin to pack a few things into a backpack that I found in a car.

"We'll go up the creek five miles and then back down. That's her only landmark; she should be there," Daryl slings his crossbow on his back and we all head out.

We walk for hours in silence except for the occasional call for Sophia. I walk beside of Lori, careful to avoid looking at Carol. I've never been the best at comforting people in these types of situations. Give me a dying patient's family members, and I'm fine. But give me someone whose lost a child and I'm completely clueless. I know the situations are similar, but really I'm only good at consoling my patients and their families. Pretty much all I'm good at is doing things for my patients and their families.

"Hold up," Rick holds a hand up and motions for us to stop. There's a tent in front of us and Daryl is already slowly unzipping it. "Carol, call out for her. If she's in there, your voice should be the first she hears."

"Sophia," Carol manages to say through her constant crying. "Sophia, baby, it's mommy."

Rick nods his head at Daryl and he quickly opens the tent. They both cough and take a stop back. The stench drifts back to us and I let out a gag. Someone has obviously died in there, probably killed himself if I was guessing. I watch as Daryl goes into the tent and comes back out a few seconds later, shaking his head.

"She's not in there. Some guy chose to opt-out like Jenner put it," Daryl wipes his face and we all fell silent again until we hear church bells ringing. Everyone takes off running until we finally break out of the tree line.

"Rick that's not it," Shane refers to the church in the distance. "No steeple, no bells."

Rick ignores him and takes off running to it anyway with all of us right behind him. The bells stop ringing by the time we make it to the front steps though. Rick, Shane and Daryl open the doors and kill the walkers inside.

"Yo, JC, you takin' any requests?" Daryl says to the statue of Jesus on the cross that stands in the front of the room. I let out a laugh from a few pews behind him and he raises an eyebrow at me. "Not religious?"

"Not at all," I say and head back outside of the church. Although I don't exactly believe, I still feel uncomfortable standing in a church. While everyone else is inside praying or whatever religious people do, I sit outside on the bricks around the welcome sign.

"This is some bullshit," Daryl grumbles from beside of me. "We don't need to waste any time here prayin' 'cause that's not gettin' us anywhere. What we should be doing is walking along the damn creek and lookin' for that little girl."

"You're right," my head nods in agreement. "It's a waste of time. I prefer medical and scientific explanations than just blindly putting my faith into something I can't even prove."

"You're not as dumb as I thought you were," Daryl reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cigarette.

"I'm not dumb at all," I state. He can say it all he wants, but I know for a fact that I'm not dumb.

"Ya got no common sense," he puffs out a small cloud of smoke.

"Fair enough," I agree. He's right though; I'm only smart when it's something that I was taught. It falls silent between us until he puts his smoke out and walks back over to the others. They're all gathered together, so I follow him.

"Shane and I are gonna' stay here for another hour or something. Just to be a bit more thorough," Rick says, wiping sweat off of his forehead.

"You're splitting us up. You sure?" Daryl asks Rick.

"Yeah, we'll be right behind you. Just head back to the highway up the other side of the creek," Rick tells us, then hands Lori his gun.

"I'm not gonna' leave you unarmed," Lori shakes her head.

"Here, I gotta' spare. You can take it," Daryl hands Lori a small handheld gun. If looks could kill, Lori would be dead ten times over by Andrea. She's still butt hurt over Dale taking her gun I guess.

"I wanna' stay with you, Dad," Carl walks over to Rick.

"It's up to your mom," Rick looked at Lori. "But I think you'd be okay."

"Be safe," Lori kissed his head, letting him go.

The small group of Carol, Andrea, Daryl, Glenn, Lori and I made outer way back to the highway. We called out for Sophia as we walked, but we had no luck in finding her. Nobody spoke and Carol just cried. I felt terrible for her, but there's nothing I can do to help her. Once we're about halfway back, we hear a single gunshot sing out. We paused for a moment, but continued walking in silence.

"Something's wrong," Lori suddenly stops. "Why only one gunshot?"

"Probably just had to put down a walker," Daryl sighs.

"Don't patronize me," Lori shakes her head. "Rick wouldn't risk using his gun to put down a single walker, or Shane, they'd use a knife."

"Shouldn't they have caught up with us by now?" Carol timidly asks.

"Nothin' we can do about it anyway," Daryl tells us. "We best keep doin' what we've been doin'. Lookin' for Sophia and makin' our way back to the highway."

"I'm sure they'll meet us back at the RV," I put a hand on Lori's shoulder as Carol talks to Andrea.

"I just keep hoping and praying she doesn't end up like Amy," Carol says. She shakes her head after realizing what she just said, "Oh God. That's the worst thing I've ever said to someone."

"If it's worth anything, we're all hoping and praying with you," Andrea nods, trying not to look offended, though it's failing.

"Hoping and praying won't get you anywhere," I say to them. "The only thing we can do is search for her and we will find her."

"Damn right," Daryl says. "Trixy is the only one out of all of ya'll that's got half a brain. We're gonna' track down and find your little girl."

"Trixy?" I question, walking at the same pace as Daryl.

"Didn't-" Daryl starts to explain himself, but Andrea screaming stops him. We turn to run to her, but a woman on a horse has already taken care of the walker.

"Lori? Lori Grimes?" The woman frantically looks around. "Beatrix?"

"Who are you?" Lori asks the woman.

"Are you Lori?" Lori nods, "Carl's been shot. You need to come with me right now. Is there a Beatrix?"

"I'm Beatrix," I speak up.

"Rick said for you to get a Daryl to drive you on his bike out to the farm. He said you were a trauma surgeon, right?"

"Yeah," I say, getting excited. Not because Carl got shot, but because I was going to get to perform surgery again. Rick was my last and I absolutely love doing it.

"Good. We need you to remove the bullet fragments from his abdomen," the woman pulls Lori up onto the horse with her. "Get back onto Fairborn Road, two miles down you'll see our mailbox. The name is Greene."

"We don't even know this woman! How are you supposed to trust her?" Daryl yells as the woman rides off with Lori on the back of the horse.

"Daryl, she knows Rick and she knows our names. Carl has been shot and I need to perform surgery on him," I grab his arm and start to pull him along.

"You're right," he mumbles and turns to the rest of the small group. "Ya'll make your way back to the RV. Stay there tonight and rig a big sign in case Sophia makes her way back there, then head to the farm in the morning."

"We can a meet up there," I add in before letting go of Daryl's arm and taking off in a run towards the highway. Daryl is right behind me and it only takes us minutes to get back.

"What's wrong?" Dale asks from on top of the RV.

"Carl's been shot," I explain as Daryl gets onto his bike. "They need me. Daryl, don't we need a surgical kit?"

"Rick said for me to bring you on the bike," Daryl starts the engine on the motorcycle. "He would have said if they needed any medical supplies. You're fine, now get on."

"Alight," I mumble and swing my leg over the bike, sitting down.

"You best hold on tight," Daryl tells me as he starts maneuvering through the abandoned cars. "Unless you wanna' fall off."

I wrap my arms around his waist and squeeze tight, afraid of falling off. The thought of operating on someone had clouded my mind. I hadn't even thought about how this was my first time on a motorcycle or how afraid of them I used to be. I force the scared thoughts away and bury my face into Daryl's back, just hoping the ride would be over soon.


	8. Chapter 8: Carl Grimes

**Beatrix**

"Oh God, Beatrix!" Rick yells from the porch of the large, white farmhouse we'd found.

"Rick, where's Carl? How is he?" I frantically ask, running onto the porch and into the house.

"In here," Rick leads me to a room where Carl is laying unconscious on a bed and Lori is crying beside of it. There's an old man taking his blood pressure and a woman messing with an IV beside of him.

"Are you a doctor too?" I ask the man.

"No, I'm a vet," he says and I sigh. "I'm Hershel. I take it you can do surgery?"

"Beatrix. It's my chosen profession," I smile, but it instantly fades, as I look at Carl. "How many fragments?"

"Six, but I managed to get one out," he takes his stethoscope out of his ears and hands it to me. "He woke up during it, and he has internal bleeding. You'll need to cut him open to get everything fixed I'm afraid. And he'll need to be put under or you could sever an artery."

"Do you have the supplies to do surgery and put him under?" I ask before dropping to my knees beside Carl and listening to his heart and lungs.

"I have the medicine to put him under and a surgical kit, but no way to keep him breathing," he explains, then looks to a rather large man in the corner of the room that I hadn't noticed. "I was thinking you could get the stuff from one of the FEMA trailers at the high school. They're stocked with medical supplies."

"Trailers stocked with medical supplies?" I smile up at him, but then shake my head. Task at hand, Beatrix, concentrate on the task at hand. "Never mind that. I have a tracheal intubation kit in the RV on the highway. And an oxygen mask, which will be annoying to do, but it would work."

"I'm sure we could make do with that," Hershel says. "How far away is it?"

"I could be there and back in five minutes," I get up, but Daryl keeps me from leaving the room.

"You need to stay here," he puts his hands on my shoulders. "Carl needs you."

"I'll go," Rick starts toward the door, but Lori stops him.

"No, Rick, I can't do this alone. You need to be here," Lori grabs his arm and he sits back down beside of her.

"I'll go. Which bags to you want me to bring?" Daryl asks me, looking straight into my eyes. I was slightly intimidated, but I didn't let it faze me. This is my area of expertise and I need to be in control.

"All of them. I don't know what's in each separate bag. We can sort it out when you get back," I say. He nods and turns to leave.

"Take Shane with you if you want," Rick chimes in.

"All of that won't fit on my bike," Daryl shakes his head, probably thinking about how much medical supplies I actually have.

"Take my truck," the large man in the corner volunteers. "It's the blue one, I'll show you."

"I'm goin' too, man," Shane says from the doorway. I hadn't noticed him here before.

"Hurry up!" I yell at them. "I need to operate on Carl soon or he's going to die."

Not entirely true because Carl could survive a few more hours like this, but they need to get going. They all run out of the room after I yell and I look back at Lori and Rick. I probably shouldn't have said that in front of them.

"Is he really-" Lori cries, not able to finish her sentence.

"No, no. He'll be fine as long as they get the bags to me soon. I'll operate as soon as I can and he'll be just fine," I smile at her.

"Thank you, Beatrix," Rick nods at me. I suddenly remember something I need from the RV though and run outside the house, hoping they hadn't left yet.

"Daryl! Shane!" I call out, running out of the door. Shane slammed on the brakes of the truck once he heard me running to them. I got up to the passenger window where Daryl was and reached in, grabbing his face, "Bring my IV pole please."

"You and that damn pole," he jerks his face away from my hands and leans back. "I'll get it."

"Thank you," I step back and let them drive away, then make my way back into Carl's room.

"Where'd you go?" Lori asks me.

"Told Daryl to bring my IV pole with him," I let out a small laugh and direct my attention back to Carl. His eyes were fluttering open and I took my opportunity to get down beside of him and take his carotid pulse on his neck.

"Where am I?" Carl asks, reaching his hand up to mine and holding onto my thumb.

"Shhh," I quite him until I'm finished with his pulse. It's normal, so I let him continue, "You were shot. The bullet broke up into six pieces and I need to get them out. Guess how many bullet fragments your dad had when he got shot?"

"How many?" Carl looks up at me.

"Six. Just like you," I smile and he returns it before looking at Lori.

"Mom, I was petting a deer. It was so pretty," Carl sighs before his eyes roll back into his head and his grip on my thumb goes limp. He's getting ready to seize.

"What happened to him?" Rick panics as Carl's body starts jerking back and forth in frenzy.

"He's seizing," I inform Rick and force Carl onto his left side, facing me. Rick and Lori attempt to hold him down, but I stop them. "If you hold him down you'll hurt him. You just have to let him seize it out."

"Oh god," Lori mutters and sits down while Rick and I still hold Carl on his left side. Not restricting him, just making sure that if he pukes he won't aspirate and die. After a couple of minutes, Carl's body goes limp again and I let him roll back onto his back.

"Check his bandage. Is there extra blood on it?" I watch as Rick pulls the covers down to reveal Carl's abdomen. The bandages covering his wound are completely covered in blood. Good job, Carl, you managed to seize your wound open.

"Shouldn't they be back by now?" Lori asks worriedly. As if on cue, we hear a truck engine outside and I smile. Shane and Daryl both run in, carrying my suitcases and duffle bags of medical supplies.

"I told you my medical supplies could save Carl's life one day," I mutter at Rick and Lori. They seem like they didn't like that very much, but it's true. I did tell them. "Where's my IV pole?"

"In the back of the truck," Daryl drops the bags he's holding onto the floor. "I'll go get it."

"Thank you!" I call after him. "Alright we need to get to work. Hershel, how many people do you have that can help me?"

"You've got Maggie, Patricia, Beth, and I," he tells me. Four people, that's a good start to a surgical team.

"Can we push this bed out from the wall and get a chair behind it? Someone's going to need to pump the bag at all times," I start going though the bags, pulling out my intubation kit and the bag to go on it.

"Of course," Hershel says as Daryl enters the room with my IV pole, sitting it down and turning to leave.

"Daryl, wait!" I say and he stops in his tracks. "Can you push the bed out from the wall? I'm sure Rick's given blood and isn't very able," I noticed the bandage on Rick's forearm earlier. "Rick, you or Lori are going to have to keep him breathing. About seventeen times per minute you'll have to squeeze the pouch. Can you do it?"

"Yeah, we can do it," Rick nods his head as Daryl gets the bed pushed out. I immediately step behind the bed and lean over with my intubation kit, getting the tubing down his throat and attaching the bag while Hershel gave Carl the medicine to be put to sleep with.

"Daryl, Shane, and man I don't know, I don't mean to be rude, but please leave. It's really crowded in here and I need to be able to work," I order and they all leave. It's still crowded, but not as bad as before. "Can someone get me gloves and a bathroom?"

The woman, I'm pretty sure her name is Patricia, leads me to a bathroom to scrub up and slip on gloves. Everyone else does the same before I'm finally ready to open Carl up.

/

"Did you do your medical thing?" Daryl asks me as I sit down on the small couch next to him.

"Yes, I did my medical thing," I let out a small laugh and wipe a small bead of sweat off of my forehead. "Carl is going to be just fine. No complications."

"Good," he crosses his legs, but like in a manly way. I never understood why men only propped their foot on their knee, but whatever floats their boat.

"I don't know where we're supposed to sleep," I sigh and pull my knees up to my chest. It's already dark outside and the only lights on are the ones in Carl's room and the porch lights that shine through the window. Hershel and his family headed to bed not too long ago and left Rick and Lori in Carl's room. I'm pretty sure Shane took Otis' truck back to the highway to update the others and bring them here tomorrow while I was working on Carl. Daryl had the opportunity to go, but he didn't. He's probably just worried about Carl.

"Right here seems like as good of a place as any," Daryl leans back, making himself comfortable. "Doesn't look like a very comfortable position to sleep in."

"It's not," I sigh and drop my head onto my knees.

"Here," he grabs my ankles and pulls them out across his legs, forcing me into a laying position.

"You don't look comfy either," I look up at him. He's got his hands behind his head and his eyes are closed.

"I've slept in worse conditions," he has a hint of a grin on his face. It's kind of cute, really.

/

Daryl is gone when I wake up the next morning, which I totally expected. As long as I've known him, which isn't very long, he's always been awake before me. Then again, almost everybody wakes up before me. I'm always the last to wake up.

"Finally awake?" Hershel asks from the chair across from the couch I'm sitting on. "I'm sorry I didn't get you and your husband a bed. I was too exhausted to do much of anything. The couch probably wasn't the most comfortable place to sleep."

"Oh, he's not my husband," I let out a small laugh at his mistake. It probably looked weird, but we were just sleeping and making do with the situation we were in. "But it's fine. It's better than where I have been sleeping."

"We have breakfast if you want some," Hershel points to the dining where I see everybody eating at the table.

"Thank you," I smile at him, getting up and going to the dining room. I take a seat between Hershel's daughter, Beth, and Rick.

"Good morning, Beatrix," Rick smiles at me. "I can't thank you enough for what you've done for Carl. And for what you've done for me, taking care of me while I was in a coma. I owe you a lot."

"It's really not a problem," I shrug and pick up a piece of toast, covering it in grape jelly. "I love helping people and you all have been so nice to me already, letting me join your group and all."

"Carl and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you," Rick puts a hand on my shoulder. "I could never repay that debt to you."

I wasn't really sure what to say after that, so I just smiled and nodded my head. Rick finished his food and went to take a plate to Lori, who had stayed in the room with Carl. Once I've finished my toast and jelly, I head back to Carl's room as well.

"Has he woken up yet?" I ask Lori, who's sat in the same chair behind the bed, as she was last night when she was keeping him breathing. I notice he's regaining his color as I take his blood pressure.

"No, is that bad?" Lori clutches Rick's arm as if she'll die if she lets go.

"No, not at all," I push my hair behind my ears. "He should wake up soon though. Just come and find me if we wakes up while I'm not here, okay?"

"We will," Lori gives me a faint smile. "Thank you so much."

"It's no problem," I stand back up from my crouched position and head outside.

"Beatrix, isn't it?" Hershel's other daughter, Maggie, walks up to me.

"Yeah, hello. You're Maggie, right?" I take a seat on one of the rocking chairs on the porch and pull my knees up to my chest.

"That's me," she takes a seat in the rocking chair next to me. She extends her hand out to me and I shake it, not wanting to seem rude. "We haven't really had a proper introduction yet."

"Yeah, but you're a really good surgical assistant," I let out a small laugh and she does too.

"Thank you. You're an excellent surgeon," Maggie smiles at me. "How many are in the rest of your group?"

"Other than Shane and Daryl, there's five of them," I tell her. "Well, six really. A woman, Carol, lost her daughter a couple of days ago and we've been looking for her ever since. I'm pretty sure that's how Carl got shot."

"That's terrible," she shakes her head. "And I'm sure Otis didn't mean to shoot him. It was a complete accident."

"It doesn't matter," I shake my head. "What matters is that he's going to be okay."

She was going to answer when we heard cars getting close to the house. Once they came into view I identified them as the RV and Carol's Cherokee, along with a blue truck that I assume is Otis'. I smile at the sight and go inside to tell Rick. When I went to open the door to Carl's room, I almost slammed right into Lori.

"I was just coming to get you, Carl's awake," she smiles and moves out of the way so I can get to Carl.

"You can go on outside, the rest of the group is here. I'll be here with him," I tell Rick and get on my knees beside of the bed so I can talk to Carl. "Hey, Carl. How are you feeling?"

"My stomach hurts," he puts a hand over his bandages.

"I know, but you can't touch that, okay? You wouldn't want to break your stitches," I ruffle his hair a little. "You're just like your dad. You should get some rest."

"Okay," he sighs and closes his eyes again, going back to sleep. I stand back up and head back outside to see what's going on.

"He's going to be okay, thanks to Beatrix and Hershel," Rick says. I assume he's talking about Carl.

"T-Dog!" I spot him and make my way over. "How's your arm? Let me see it."

"Hurts like hell," he winces as I lift up the gauze to look at it. His veins are discolored and puss is oozing out of it.

"It's infected. How did you even manage that? I cleaned it so well!" I sigh and pull him into the house to I can fix his arm up.

After T-Dog's arm is all finished, I head outside to see what everyone's doing. The women and Glenn are setting up tents and the men and Maggie are gathered around a car.

"What's going on?" I ask once I make it over to Rick.

"Just discussing the plan for finding Sophia," Rick nods to a map on the hood of the car.

"I'll help look for her if you need me to," I volunteer.

"Daryl is the only one going today. I'm not able, Shane is going to scout out a place to do gun training, and you need to stay here with Carl," Rick tells me.

"Fair enough," I shrug as Daryl and Shane walk off.

"Got any more medical supplies? We're runnin' low," Maggie looks between Rick and I.

"Didn't you see the bags they brought in last night?" Rick raises his eyebrow.

"Is all of that medical supplies?" She asks, astonished.

"Beatrix is passionate about medical supplies," Rick laughs.

"It's true! I basically live for the stuff," I laugh along with everyone. "Seriously though, what about that high school Hershel mentioned last night? I hear that there's trailers full of medical supplies."

"Oh no, you wouldn't wanna' go there. The place is overrun," Maggie sighs. "It's a medical supply heaven, but it's not worth it."

"Medical supplies is always worth it," I mumble. That place is supposedly a medical supply heaven and they expect me to not try and go to it? That's cute. I'm sure I could gather up a few people and go check it out at lease.

"There is a pharmacy down town that I've been going to get supplies. I could go back and see if they have anything potentially useful if you want," Maggie offered.

"That would be great," I smile. More medical supplies makes for a happy Beatrix.

"See our man in the baseball cap? He's our go-to-town man. You should take him with you," Rick points out Glenn to Maggie.

"Will do," she smiles and walks off to Glenn. After I see that she's done talking to him, I walk over to him.

"Hey, Beatrix!" Glenn waves at me. "What should I look for at the pharmacy?"

"I will provide you with bags to carry it in if need be, but you bring everything. Anything medical you must bring it to me. I could need it," I order. It kind of sounded like I was threatening him, which was funny.

"Jeez, I'll get it. Calm down," Glenn shakes his head and walks off. I smile to myself and walk over to Carol to see if she needs any help.

"Not right now, sweetie. We're just fixing sleeping arrangements," Carol smiles at me. All of the tents are put up and T-Dog and Shane are working on the fire pit. Winter is coming up in a few weeks, so we've gotta' stay warm somehow.

"Oh. How's that gonna' work out?" I ask her. She looks around and counts the tents again before answering.

"Everyone will have to buddy up. We've already talked about it some," Carol looks to the RV. "Dale and T-Dog are going to take the RV, Rick and Lori will obviously share the bigger one with Carl once he's well enough to be out here. I'm going to share with Andrea, and I'm pretty sure Glenn and Shane said they were."

"Then that leaves," I pause, thinking. "Me and Daryl, how great. It shouldn't be that bad though. We shared a room at the CDC and he seemed fine then."

"That's good," Carol puts a hand on my shoulder. She still looks so sad; I really hope we find Sophia soon. "He had us pitch his tent all the way over there, away from the rest of us."

"I'm going to go talk to him about it," she nods as I get up and walk off to find Daryl before he leaves to go look for Sophia.

* * *

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	9. Chapter 9: Roommates

**Beatrix**

"Daryl!" I jog to catch up with him on the other side of the house. Once I get to him, I can see that he's talking to Rick.

"I'm better on my own," Daryl says to Rick. I'm guessing Rick doesn't like him going off on his own.

"I still think you need to take someone with you," Rick tries to reason with him.

"I'll go with him," I volunteer and wave my hand a little.

"Yeah, Daryl, take Beatrix with you," Rick motions to me.

"Don't she have to watch the kid? Make sure he don't die on ya?" Daryl tries to get out of taking me with him. He has a valid point though.

"I've already done my part. I operated on him, and normally that's when I give my patients off to the nurses anyway. Patricia, Beth, and Maggie are perfectly qualified of taking care of him while I'm gone," I protest.

"See? Just take her with you," Rick looks to me.

"I don't need anyone to come with me. I'm just fine on my own," Daryl starts to walk off again.

"Daryl, I'm going with you. I came here to talk to you anyway," I call after him. He turns around and grunts, giving in waiting on me to follow him.

"You got a weapon?" Daryl asks me as we walk into the woods.

"Yeah I-" I pat my left thigh and remember that my knife isn't there. "No. I forgot I took it off my loop last night before surgery. It just un-sterile and I didn't want him to get an infection because that would be terrible. I don't think I could have-"

"Stop rambling, you can carry mine," Daryl stops walking and sits his crossbow down at the base of a tree, then unbuckles his belt.

"I really don't need one. I'm not very good with it," I watch him take his belt off and slip the knife sheath off. "You can take care of one if it gets too close."

"What if I've got a walker on me too? Ya gotta' learn to protect youself, Trixie," he hands me the knife and I quickly undo my belt and slip it onto the loop.

"Nobody's ever called me Trixie before. That's a new one," I smile at him as he picks his crossbow back up.

"I'll stick with Beatrix then," he grunts and continues walking.

"No, you don't have to. I like Trixie, it's cute," I follow him, trying to keep up with his fast walking pace.

"Ain't nothin' about me that's cute," he grumbles and calls out for Sophia.

"I didn't mean it like that," I sigh. "But I needed to talk to you anyway."

"'Bout what?"

"Where you're going to sleep. Carol told me to ask you about it," he grunts and I take that as an incentive to continue. "Said you had them set your tent up away from everybody else's, but she said we didn't have enough for everybody to have their own."

"I ain't sharin' with nobody," Daryl says before calling out for Sophia again.

"Well, you see, that's what I needed to talk to you about. There's enough room for two people per tent, save Lori and Rick because they're sharing with Carl, and everybody already picked partners by the time I got outside," my voice gets quieter as the sentence goes on. I don't think he'll get mad and blow up, but he might so I'm trying to tread lightly. He's not one for talking a lot and I know that, but he does seem to talk to me more than the others which helps a lot. "So I didn't think it was that big of a deal, since we already shared a room at the CDC it'll basically be the same thing. And last night-"

"You're rambling again," Daryl butts in. "Just move your stuff in when we get back."

"Alright, cool, good," I let out a sigh of releif. "I thought you were gonna yell at me."

"Why would I yell at you?" He suddenly stops and turns around to face me. He drops his crossbow and holds my shoulders to keep me from bumping into his chest.

"You like being alone, I'd have to be stupid not to see that," I let out a small laugh and take a step back. "Just didn't want to invade your private space, that's all. I figured you'd be upset about it."

"Nah, you're fine," he shakes his head, picks up his crossbow and starts walking again. "I wouldn't yell at you. Especially over something as dumb as that."

"You're a lot nicer than I thought you were," I continue following him.

"I'm nice," Daryl mumbles. "To people I don't hate."

"Aw you don't hate me. How sweet," I laugh, but he holds his hand up and silences me. We're at the edge of the trees and there's a clearing with a house on it.

"Keep quiet. She could be in there," Daryl whispers to me and heads up the front porch steps. I closely follow him as he clears the house. I'd help him, but I'd probably do more harm than good and end up getting both of us killed.

"Somebody's been here," he says, picking up an empty can of something and pouting the remaining juice out. It smells disgusting.

"The cupboard," I whisper, poking his shoulder and pointing to it. It's cracked open and I can see a blanket inside.

He quickly walks over to it and throws it open, showing that there's indeed a blanket and pillow inside. It was only big enough to fit somebody tiny inside, as in under five feet tall. Sophia could have easily been hiding out here. Daryl thinks the same thing I am and runs out the front door into the lawn.

"Sophia!" He calls out for her multiple times, but there's no answer. If she had been here, she's not here now so there's no use in wasting our time.

"We should head back," I tell him and he nods. "We can tell the group what we found."

"I'll keep an eye out for squirrels on the way back," he grunts and takes off back into the trees. He has a way of making his footsteps so quite, it's amazing.

"How do you walk so quite? You've gotta weigh like twice what do, but you're not even half as loud as I am walking," I ask him. "I mean, you're not fat it's just-"

"Why you gotta ramble so much?"

"I don't mean to I'm sorry," I look down at my feet, even though he can't see me.

"Ain't nothin' for you to be sorry for," Daryl mumbles and keeps on walking. "I'll scare the game away if I'm not quiet."

"Right, sorry," I apologize again.

"Stop sayin' you're sorry. You ain't got nothin' to be sorry for," he slows down, walking at the same pace as me.

"I'm sorry I'll stop," I rub my hand over my face. "I done it again."

"It's fine," he lets out a small laugh and I smile, laughing too. While we're laughing, I happen to look up at a tree and notice a squirrel making its way across a branch.

"Daryl, look," I grab his shoulder and point to the squirrel. He quickly loads his crossbow and I try not to notice his arm muscles as he does so. They're very... healthy looking arms.

"Aren't you glad you brought me now?" I tease him as he picks his squirrel up and stuffs it into his belt.

"Woulda' seen it without ya," he wipes his arrow off on his pant leg and returns it to its correct spot on his crossbow.

"Nun-uh," I shake my head. "You weren't paying attention.

"Because you made me laugh," he argues and then realizes what he said. He tenses up and walks a bit faster.

"Don't worry, I ain't gonna' tell anybody that Tough Guy Daryl laughed for once in his laugh," I joke and follow him.

He doesn't reply, so we walk in silence until we get back to camp, which isn't very long. Daryl manages to get two more squirrels on our way back though, which is great. It's almost dark by the time we roll into camp, so I head to the house to get my things.

"Hey, Maggie!" I smile at her as I make my way into Carl's room.

"Beatrix, would you mind us keeping all of your stuff inside of the house? It'd be safer in here, just in case it rains or something. You have plenty to last my family and yours for a while," she stops me in Carl's door.

"Yeah, I'm sure Daryl doesn't have room in the tent for it anyway," I nod my head and Maggie smiles. "I just gotta' find the bag with all of my clothes in it."

"Can you help me carry the rest of them into the other bedroom? I could let you take a shower if you wanted," Maggie offers.

"That would be great. Could I do it tomorrow though? I'm not too fond of showering at night," I walk into Carl's room with her following me and start looking through the bags piled on the floor.

"Of course," she smiles and I quickly find the bag I'm looking for. "Aren't you gonna check up on Carl?"

"He looks like he's doing just fine. You guys kept an eye on him while I was gone, right?" She nods her head, so I continue. "Do you know where Rick and Lori are?"

"They're settling things with everyone else outside I think," she tells me. "He'll be fine until they get back."

"Alight," I hurry up and help her move all of my medical supplies into the other bedroom and stop back in Carl's room to get something before heading back outside to the others.

"Did you talk to Daryl?" Carol stops me, holding a plate of food. Probably some of Daryl's squirrel.

"I did. He didn't yell at me, whih is good," I smile and she nods. "He's okay with it."

"I'm glad, honey," she hands me the plate. "You should eat. I'm sure you haven't had much today."

"Thank you," I give her another smile and make my way over mine and Daryl's tent. I throw my bag inside and carefully sit my plate down before going back out to retrieve my last item.

"Beatrix, what the hell?" Daryl calls to me, seeing me struggling.

"Mind helping me?" I stick my bottom lip out in a childish way. "Please?"

"You mean to tell me," he sighs and runs a hand through his hair. He looks so done with me right now I almost let out a laugh. "That you're gonna make me sleep with that damn pole of yours?"

"No, I mean to tell you that I'm going to sit my IV pole beside of my sleeping space in case I need it," I let out my laugh now. Daryl is not amused.

"Why the hell would you possibly need a damn pole in the tent?" Daryl asks, as if me wanting to have my IV pole nearby is the strangest thing in the world. "Not to mention it ain't even gonna fit in there."

"It'll fit if I lay it down," I reason. "Plus, you could throw a clot in the middle of the night and I would need to drip you Lovenox."

"How the hell are ya gonna drip me love shit if it's lying down? And why would you be giving me love nuts in the first place?" He's getting so upset over my IV pole. This is the funninest thing I've seen in a long time.

"It's not love nuts, Daryl," I snort from laughing so hard. "It's Lovenox, which is a blood thinner."

"Don't care about that medical mumbo jumbo," he scoffs.

"I do. Just help me, please?" I ask again and he gives in, jerking the IV pole from me and laying it down on my side of the tent.

"You best not try to kill me with that," he grumbles and lays down on his sleeping bag.

"I'd never kill someone with an IV pole," I mutter and sit down Indian style on my side of the tent. "Is this the squirrel you caught earlier? You know, because of me?"

"Yeah, that's it," he grunts and I start eating. "Don't you got a sleeping bag?"

"Nah, I've got a pillow and blanket somewhere in my bag," I point to it.

"I'll get it for ya," he grabs my bag and starts going through it. He throws my pillow and blanket over to me before pulling out my knife, "This yours?"

"Yeah," I say inbetween bites.

"Mine now," he sits up on his knees and loops it through his belt. "It's only fair. You've got mine."

"I'll give it back if you want it," I sit my plate down after my last bite and go to pull out his knife.

"This one's a good one," he pats it and sits back down. "I'll keep it."

"Whatever," I shrug my shoulders. "Doesn't matter to me, I don't like using them."

"You need to go to gun training with Shane," he lays down in his sleeping bag and turns the lantern off.

"I don't like guns," I fix my blanket and pillow and make myself comfortable.

"You're gonna have to. It ain't safe not knowin' how to use one anymore," Daryl says.

"I know," I sigh and wrap my hand around my IV pole.

"You would," I hear someone laugh from beside of me. My eyes open to see Daryl standing above me. "You would be the one to cuddle with that damn pole."

"I what?" I sit up, confused. Then I realize what he was talking about- my arms were wrapped around my IV pole. "Oh. I sleep cuddle."

Daryl shakes his head and leaves. I stretch My arms and crack my back before standing up and grabbing a pair of scrubs, heading to the house to take the shower that Maggie promised me. She showed me where her bathroom was and left me to take my shower.

I quickly stripped down and hopped in, washing all of the dirt and grime off of my body. My hair was left up in a towel once I got done and headed off to give Carol my dirty clothes. She said she would have them washed by tomorrow, so I quickly grabbed one of my lab coats from the tent and headed to see Carl.

"Hey guys," I smile as I walk into the room. Rick is sitting in the chair beside of Carl's bed.

"Awesome! Where'd you get the lab coat?" Carl asks me from the bed.

"It's mine," I point to my name on the front. "I brought it with me from home."

"Dr. Beatrix Zedler, M.D." Carl reads the embroidery of my coat. "What does M.D. mean?"

"Medical doctor," I smile and take his blood pressure.

"I want to be a doctor," Carl smiles up at me.

"I'm sure Beatrix would love to teach you some of the things she knows, right?" Rick asks me, seeming hopeful.

"Of course, I'd love to!" I start getting excited. Anything medical, I love it all. "I've never actually taught it before, but I'm sure it would be fun."

"Thank you," Rick nods to me and Carl looks like his face will rip if he smiles any bigger.

"It's no problem at all, really," I sling the stethescope around my neck and sit down at Carl's feet. "Once you're back on your feet, I'll teach you whatever you want to know."

"Promise?" Carl sticks out his pinkie finger.

"Promise," I smile and lock pinkies with him.

"When will he be able to get out of bed?" Rick asks.

"Five days or so," I guess. "It wasn't that major of a surgery. He'll just be sore for a long time."

"Thank you, Beatrix," Rick puts a hand on my shoulder. "I mean it, you've done more for my family than I could repay you."

"You don't owe me anything, Rick. You're my family now and it's what we do for eachother," I smile at him and get up to leave the room.


	10. Chapter 10: Experiment

• **ten•**

 **Beatrix**

"Beatrix!" Glenn calls for me as I'm walking out of the house.

"Glenn!" I run up to him and grab his collar, shaking him, "Did you get all of the medical supplies?"

"Beatrix, calm down," Glenn grabs my shoulders and I stop shaking him. "Yes, I got all of your medical supplies."

"Promise?" I ask, my hands still gripping his collar.

"Yes, Beatrix, I promise," Glenn sighs and I loosen my grip a little.

"Take me to it," I demand and grab onto his arm so he can walk.

"You can be really scary," Glenn swallows and starts walking towards the cars. "You know, with your medical supplies."

"Not scary, just passionate," I shrug as he continues walking.

"Everything alright here?" Shane asks, stopping Glenn and I.

"I wouldn't try to stop her if I were you," Glenn mutters and Shane raises an eyebrow. "She's on a hunt for medical supplies."

"You should come with us," I tell Shane. "I need to talk to you and Rick about something when I'm done."

"Alright," Shane rubs his head and falls into step with us. Somehow he's managed to shave his head, which is really different, but it suits him.

"Bed of the truck," Glenn points to Otis' blue truck. I let go of his arm and hop into the bed. There are two duffle bags, not as big as mine, but they still seem to be filled up.

"Glenn, you're officially my favorite person ever," I smile at him and then sit down, unzipping the bags and quickly looking through them.

"What'd you need me for?" Shane props himself up on the truck.

"We need to talk to Rick," I mutter, getting up. Shane holds my arm as I jump out of the truck so I don't fall.

"Let's go then," Shane nods to me and we walk off, leaving Glenn. Rick is sitting on the porch of the farmhouse when we find him.

"Something wrong?" Rick stands up and takes a couple of steps towards us.

"No, man, Beatrix said she wanted to talk to us about somethin'," Shane rubs his head again.

"I had an idea," I look around to make sure nobody could hear us. "About a cure. Well, not exactly a cure, but rather an immunity to the disease."

"An immunity?" Rick whispers, leaning closer to make sure nobody hear us.

"Yes, an immunity. Jenner and I theorized that the reason this disease kills you so quickly, is that it's set in so quickly," I explain. "You have no defense system to it so your whitle blood cells can't fight it off. If your bloodstream were to have exposure, even the slightest bit, to the disease, it could built up an immunity to it. If I'm right, I could have our whole group immune to the virus."

"What's this got to do with me?" Shane asks, putting a hand on his hip.

"Remember back at the CDC when Jenner tested all of our blood?" I ask and they nod, urging me to go on. "Well, he let me see the results, and I have a copy if you don't believe me. I compared everybody's white count, and I thought we could try out my theory on the person with the highest. But that's only if you guys think it's a good idea."

"Who has the highest white count?" Shane asks, already knowing it was him. I gave him a small nod that let him know he was right. "Let's say I were to agree to this. How would you expose my bloodstream to it?"

"Walker blood injections," I mumble, looking down at my feet.

"Isn't that dangerous?" Rick asks.

"Yeah, but if it goes wrong I can control it. Between my blood thinners and the rest of my medicine, Shane should be fine. I wouldn't give him much at first, barely any. Just enough to expose it, then gradually getting more and more. Then if you get bit, you should be able to survive it," I pitch my argument, hoping Shane would agree.

"And you really think this will work?" Shane sighs.

"Definitley," I nod my head. "But we'll need to keep it quiet from the rest of the group. They might not like the idea."

"Alright," Shane reluctantly nods his head.

"You know what would help," I bite my lip. "If we had that FEMA trailer Hershel mentioned. There's probably a hospital bed, or at least one of the chairs. Not to mention the holy grail of medical supplies."

"Maggie said that place was overrun, Beatrix. We can't risk it," Rick shakes his head.

"Can't I at least go scout it out? Maybe there's a way we can get it done," I beg.

"I'll go with you," Shane says.

"No, I want to do the first round today, before I go. You need to go find a walker, kill it, and draw some blood from it. I'll take Daryl," I pull the towel out of my hair and shake it out, laying the towel on the porch. Daryl shouldn't have a problem going with me

"You sure he'll go with you?" Rick raises a eyeborw.

"Yeah," I nod my head and turn to walk away. "And Shane, I'll come find you soon for the first one."

"How do I draw blood from a walker?" Shane asks, stopping me from leaving. I quickly run into the house to grab a syringe.

"Take this," I hand it to him. "Find the vein in its arm and draw it straight out."

Shane doesn't say anything as I walk off to find Daryl. He's probably back at the tent, making arrows or something. It takes me at least five minutes to walk back there. I have no idea why he had them put his tent so far away from everybody else. It's dangerous, but I guess he just likes being alone.

"Daryl?" I softly call out for him, just in case he's actually making arrows. He could accidentally slice open his thumb and I just really don't want to deal with that today.

"Go away," he replies from the other side of the fire pit. I ignore his comment and walk over to him and sit down across from him. "Oh, it's just you."

"Just me," I shrug my shoulders and watch as he uses my knife to carve sticks into arrows. "I need a favor."

"I ain't one for favors," Daryl grunts and continues carving.

"Yeah, but you're supposed to be nice to me, remember?" I laugh. "You said it yourself. You don't hate me."

"What do ya want?" He sighs and drops the arrow he was finished with.

"I need you to take me to that high school with the medical trailers," I look up at his face. "Because apparently I'm not capable of going on my own."

"You're not," he grunts. "I'll take you. Gotta have somebody to watch your ass. Keep you safe."

"Thank you," I smile and stand up. "We can leave in a hour or so."

Daryl nods his head and I head back to the farm. Before I leave though, I strip off my lab coat and throw it into the tent. Carol offers me something to eat, but I shake my head. I don't need to eat right now. Shane's green car drives up while I'm walking up the porch steps. He gives me a nod, letting me know that he got it. I wave my hand and motion for him to follow me into the spare bedroom that Maggie put my medical supplies in.

"How much did you get?" I ask, locking the door behind us. We don't need anybody walking in and seeing this.

"Half of a syringe," Shane pulls it out and hands it to me. "Blood was almost too thick to draw."

"I'm not surprised," I shake my head and sit him down on the bed. "I need to get to your shoulder."

"You gonna put all of that in me?" He unbuttons his shirt and slings it off of his left shoulder.

"No, all of this would probably kill you," I let out a small laugh, trying to lighten the mood. It did not work. "I'll only put in a little. It won't be that bad."

"And you're sure about this?" Shane asks. I go through my duffle bags until I find a bottle and another needle.

"Very," I nod my head and squirt the blood out into the bottle. I open the new syringe and draw a small amount of it back out.

"Why'd you do that?"

"Sharing needles isn't sterile," I get some gauze and tape ready.

"Stop stalling a just do it," Shane demands. I sigh and stick the needle into his upper arm. He winces as I push the blood out into his muscle.

"You might get sick," I tape gauze into where the needle was. "Not deathly ill, but nausea or headaches, dizziness or weakness."

"I'll be fine," he pulls his shirt back on.

"If you get bad off before I get back, tell Hershel to give you blood thinners. I'll explain to him when I get here," I explain as I hide the small container of blood behind the dresser. "I'm surprised you're being so cool about all of this. I didn't figure you'd let me do it."

"Pros outweigh the cons," he shrugs. "Plus you're a good doctor. I trust your opinion."

"Thank you," I smile and unlock the door.

"Beatrix?" Lori stops me as I get ready to walk out the front door. "Are you going to be busy today?"

"Yeah, I was getting ready to head out. What did you need?" I follow her into Carl's room.

"I was just going to get you to help me get settled in. Maybe start organizing everything," she sits back down in her chair by the bed.

"I'll help you when I get back. I promise," I smile and head outside again.

"You gonna head out soon?" Rick asks me as I step off the porch.

"Yeah, I just got done with Shane. Daryl said he'd go," I push my still damp hair behind my ear.

"There he is right now," Rick points to Daryl walking toward us. "You have a gun?"

"No, I don't want one," I shake my head.

"You need one," Rick sighs and hands me his handheld.

"Rick, I don't know how to shoot," I try to hand it back to him, but he won't let me.

"It could save your life," Rick says. "Please take it."

"I'll bring it back to you," I slip it into the waistband of my pants.

"I thought we agreed on no guns, Rick?" Hershel asks, walking down the steps to us.

"She only has one because she's getting ready to leave. Her and Daryl are going to go scout out that high school," Rick explains. "Would you mind giving them directions to it?"

"I wouldn't suggest taking your girl out there. It's overrun," Hershel says to Daryl, who had finally made his way over to us.

"We'll be fine. I'll keep her safe," Daryl says, not even addressing the face that Hershel referred to me as his girl.

"If you say so," Hershel sighs. "Go back out into the main road to town for about two miles, then take a right. It should be up through there."

"What are we driving?" I follow Daryl over to the cars.

"My bike," he says as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Great," I mumble, getting on behind him.

"Don't like bikes?" Daryl asks as he starts up his bike.

"They make me nervous," I say as I wrap my arms around his waist. "First time I ever rode one was with you the other day."

"Ain't nothin gonna happen to you. Just hold on," he says as he picks his feet up and starts driving off.

Once again, I bury my face into his back and shut my eyes, not wanting to accept that I'm on the back of a motorcycle. My arms tighten around his waist every time he makes a turn from fear of falling off.

"Beatrix, you can let go now," I can practically hear the smirk in Daryl's tone. "We're parked."

"Right, sorry," I let go of him so he can hop off and I follow him. "And I told you that you can call me Trixy. I like it."

"What are we doin' here anyway?" He starts walking. I realize that he's parked a little ways away so they walkers wouldn't hear the bike.

"We're here to look around and see if there's a way we can steal the medical trailer," I smile happily.

"Figures," he grunts. "Wouldn't expect any less of ya."

"Hershel and Otis said it was overrun though," I frown as we approach the high school. It's surrounded by cars, so we can't exactly get a good idea of how many walkers there are yet.

"Ah hell," Daryl whispers when we get close enough to see. There are at least thirty walkers in the area that's surrounded by cars, with the trailer supporting one of its sides. Behind the gates surrounding the school, there's at least fifty that are visible to us, not to mention the ones we can't see. "Trixy, there ain't no way."

"Daryl, we have to," I grab his very-healthy-arm and sigh. We've moved behind one of the larger cars and sit down.

"There a back door on them trailers?" He points to it. "We could creep our way around and get in. Just to see if it's even worth tryin' to figure out somethin'."

"You're a genius, Daryl. I could kiss you right now," I joke, but I guess he takes it seriously because he stiffens up and looks away from me.

"C'mon," he whispers, not looking at me. He quietly makes his way behind the cars, killing two walkers in the process, with me right behind him.

"You go in first," I push him towards the door.

"Ya really need to learn how to defend yourself," he sighs and opens the door, doing a quick sweep of the trailer before motioning me inside. I try to be as quiet as I can shutting the door behind me.

"Oh my God," I mumble, a massive smile spread across my face. "So many medical supplies."

"For God's sake don't pass out on me," Daryl sighs and sits his crossbow down on one of the portable hospital beds. "Anything good in here?"

"All medical supplies is good, Daryl," I shake my head and start going through the baskets of medicine. "There's enough antibiotics in here to save all of us from influenza twenty times over."

"Is that a good thing?" He hopps up onto the hospital bed and lays back.

"Daryl, we have to get this back to the farm," I walk over to him and sit on the stool beside of the bed.

"I'm sure we'll figure out a way," he puts his hands behind his head. "What's in it for me if I help you?"

"Hmm," I look around the room as I search. "I'll let you have that IV pole over there. Then we can match."

"You can keep your damn pole," he scoffs. "Still don't understand your obsession with that stupid thing. It's almost got us killed, multiple times."

"It's something to remind me of what the world used to be," I smile, thinking back. "Like my scrubs. I like wearing them because they remind me of my days as a trauma suergon in an actual hospital."

"It ain't like it was before," Daryl mumbles with his eyes shut.

"I wish it was," I push a piece of hair behind my ear. "Can I check your vitals?"

"The hell are my vitals?" He sits up and raises an eyebrow. "If you wanna feel me up, just say so. Don't try to pass it off as some medical shit."

"Daryl, no," I shake my head and try to hide the blush that creeps into my cheeks. "Your vitals are what you need to live. Basically your temperature, pulse, respiration and blood pressure."

"Damn," he sighs. "How long will it take? Gotta get back soon or they'll worry about us."

"Like five minutes," I smile excitedly. I look around in the containers before finding everything I need. Daryl lets me take his arm and slap the blood pressure cuff on it, I don't fail to notice again how... healthy they feel, as I put the stethescope in my ears. "Open your mouth," I tell him, holding a thermometer in front of his face. He slightly opens it, but not enough to where I can get the thermometer in. "Jesus Christ, Daryl, I need to slip it under your tongue."

"Do you really not realize how sexual you're making all of this sound?" He raises his eyebrow and his tongue. I blush, but shake it off and stick the thermometer in his mouth.

"I don't mean to," I mumble and take his blood pressure before his respiration and pulse. I gently place my fingers on the left sid of his neck. After all, the left carotid is the most accurate pulse site. "Daryl, do you feel okay?"

"Fine, why?" He says when the thermometer beeps. I take it out of his mouth and look. He doesn't have a fever and his blood pressure is normal.

"Your pulse is a hundred and two beats per minute," my eyes widen. "That's borderline tachycardia. I'm pretty sure I counted right. Let me do it again just to make sure."

"Nah, it's fine. Leave it alone," Daryl jerks his arm away from me and yanks the cuff off of his upper arm.

"But what if-"

"I said I'm fine," Daryl cuts me off and picks up his crossbow, heading to the door. "Now let's get back."

"Okay," I reluctantly follow him outside. On the way back to his bike, he manages to take down four more walkers, "We need a plan to get them all away from here. I don't think we could kill them all if we tried."

"I'll drive around here, see if there's some place we can draw them to," he sits down on his bike. "But you'll have to keep your face off my back so you can look with me."

"Oh, does that bother you?" I sit down behind him. "I'm sorry, I won't do it again."

"It don't bother me," Daryl sighs and turns around to look at me. "You just gotta help me look, I'll drive slow. And stop apologizing. You ain't got nothin' to be apologizin' to me for."

"Alright," I nod my head and he starts up the bike.

Daryl keeps to his word and drives slowly while we look. Well, slow for him. I can deal with that, it's not as bad as I thought it was. After we've drove around for a while, we discover a housing development that sits right behind the school. I have the perfect plan to get my medical trailer.

* * *

Hi guys! Thanks again for reading! In case you were wondering, I won't be following the story line after the farm. It'll be completely different up until the point of the prison, which won't exactly be the same either. I'm so excited for it!

Don't forget to follow, fav, and leave a review :)


	11. Chapter 11: Medical Trailer

**Beatrix**

"What'd you find out?" Rick asks Daryl and I once we get back from our little scouting mission.

"It's overrun," Daryl grunts and I smack his very-healthy-arm. "What? It is. "

"True, but we came up with a plan to get in there and get the medical trailer out," I smile happily.

"We did?" Daryl looks confused.

"Yes, we did. Well, I did," I shrug and turn back to Rick. "There's a housing development behind the school, about eight miles away from here. I was thinking that we could draw the walkers over there long enough to get in there, get the trailer, and get out."

"That sounds a little risky," Rick says skeptically. "How would we even draw them over there?"

"Set a house on fire," I say as Rick's eyes widen.

"Beatrix, that's insane," Rick shakes his head.

"Yeah, but so is the thing," I whisper, knowing Daryl won't ask questions. "How's he doing?"

"He seems fine," Rick tells me before looking to Daryl. "What do you think?"

"She seems to want that trailer awful bad," Daryl nods his head and bites his thumbnail. "I say we go for it."

"We need to figure out a plan to get it done then," Rick agrees.

"I've got it covered," I say before handing Rick his gun back. "I thought about it on the ride back here."

"Well I'll gather the group. You can let us all know what we do then," Rick takes his gun and goes over to our little camp site.

"Thank you," I say to Daryl. "For backing me up on this."

"Ain't no problem," Daryl walks off to the rest of the group, standing a little ways away from them. I take that as my cue to walk over and stand beside of Rick.

"Beatrix got the idea to try and go to an abandoned high school," Rick motions to me. "To get a FEMA medical trailer. It's full of medical supplies that we could use, right, Beatrix?"

"Yes! Daryl went with me to look so he can vouch," I nod my head and begin to tell them about my plan. "So the school is overrun, but I have devised a plan to get in there and get out without any problem."

"Oh yeah, and what's that?" Andrea asks in a rude tone. If she would calm herself down I would get to the actual plan part.

"There's a housing development behind the school that we could lure all of the walkers to," I explain. "We could set one of the houses on fire and maybe throw in some fireworks to make some noise. Most of them should wander over to see what's happening, and we could easily take out the few that stay. It'll buy us enough time to hook the trailer up to a truck and bring it back here. And since we don't exactly have a truck that would haul it, we could stop by the highway and get one."

"So you're just going to give up looking for my baby girl to go get this stupid trailer?" Carol asks, looking astonished.

"We could double it as looking for her," I smile at her and cross my arms over my chest. "We'll comb the housing development for any signs of her."

"I'll take a horse out tomorrow and look around some more too," Daryl speaks up. Carol nods her head in appreciation and falls quiet again.

"How many people are you gonna need on this?" Shane asks, rubbing his head. It seems like all I've been doing today is answering questions.

"Just a couple on the development and however many it'll take to get the trailer," I push my hair behind my ear again. Between the humid air and the wind from the motorcycle, my hair is more than dry. "I figure you, Daryl, T-Dog, Rick and I could go to the school. Then Glenn and Andrea could take care of the house, if you guys are willing."

"Count me in," Andrea smiles. Just a few minutes ago she was mad about the whole thing. I don't understand her at all.

"Me too," T-Dog says.

"Glenn?" I look at him with hopeful eyes.

"If you really want me to, I'll go," Glenn reluctantly nods and I mouth him a thank you.

"I'll check with Hershel and see if he has any people to spare. We'll need all the help we can get," Rick nods and walks off toward the house.

"I'll run into town to see if I can find some lighter fluid to get it started," Daryl starts walking off to his bike and I follow him.

"I'm coming with you," I throw my leg over the seat after he's sat down. "We can head to the highway and get a bigger truck."

Daryl grunts and starts his bike up in response. I push my face against his back again and tightly wrap my arms around his waist. He was right, motorcycles are actually kind of fun to ride, but I just like smelling him. Not in a creepy way, but he smells good. Like how I imagine a typical man would smell: like the woods mixed with sweat. It doesn't smell bad on him though.

"Why are we here?" I ask as I get off the bike. Daryl had cut the engine and parked in front of the local bar. "You aren't gonna get drunk are you?"

"Alcohol burns," he mumbles and walks through the door. He slings the bag off of his back that he pulled from one of the bags on his bike and begins throwing unopened bottles inside.

"Where could we get fireworks at?" I ask as I pick up a couple of bottles that I can carry in my arms.

"There should be a general store around here somewhere. They normally have the lower grade ones," Daryl slings the bag back onto his back and heads back out the door. I drop the bottles into one of the motorcycle bags and follow him into the other store.

"How much can we carry?" I ask, gathering up the largest fire works I can find.

"However much we need," he says, picking up a handful of Roman Candles. "Ya just gotta hold on long enough to get to the highway."

"Right," I mumble and follow him back out to his bike. We stuff as much as we can into the side bags, but I'm forced to hold the rest, which is the two bottles of booze I managed to grab. I wrap one arm around his waist and use the other to hold the bottles in place.

"You guys get everything?" Rick asks me as I jump out of the huge truck we stole from the highway. Though I wouldn't exactly call it stealing.

"Should have enough," Daryl hands Rick the bag he was carrying on his back. "Fireworks are in my side bags."

"I'll let Maggie and Glenn know," Rick nods and Daryl walks away.

"Maggie's going?" I question.

"Yeah, Otis is too. They volunteered to help us," Rick smiles and I go off to find Shane.

"Shane," I put a hand on his shoulder when I find him. "How are you feeling?"

"A little nauseous," he turns around to face me. "But you said that would be normal. Other than that, I'm fine."

"Good," I smile. "I hope this'll work."

"How exactly are we gonna know if it does?" He raises an eyebrow.

"You'll have to get bit," I look down. "But you would be completely fine. I wouldn't let it happen if I thought something would happen to you."

"I trust you, Beatrix. Just don't get me killed," Shane rubs his head and walks off.

"Alright, everyone got their guns and knives? Everyone knows their positions and jobs?" Our small group of nine all nod our heads at Rick. "Good. Glenn, you're head of your group. Do a quick sweep for Sophia before you light the fire. And make sure to get out of there as soon as it's lit."

"Got it," Glenn nods and walks off to the green car Shane got, with Andrea and Maggie following right behind him. Once they're all in the car, they drive off to get a head start on us.

"We better get moving," Rick pats the truck and hops into the driver's seat. Shane gets in the passenger seat with T-Dog and Otis getting into the back.

"C'mon," Daryl hops into the back of the truck and sits down.

I climb in after him and pull my knees up to my chest until we get to the school. Just like Daryl did, Rick stopped the truck a little bit away from the school so the walkers wouldn't hear the engine and get all riled up. Rick sends Shane and T-Dog up to keep an eye on the walkers to see if our plan works.

After about fifteen minutes of sitting in silence, we see fireworks starting to go up in the air, signaling that Glenn and his team have started the fire. Soon enough, we see a cloud of smoke hanging in the sky not too far away from where we were. Not too long after, Rick notices T-Dog in the distance waving his arms in a gesture for us to bring the truck up.

I stand up in the back of the truck while Rick drives forward to get a better look. From what I can tell, the walkers are making their way away from the school, but I can't exactly tell. Trying to get an even better view, I decide to stand on my tippy toes. Bad decision though, because as soon as I do, Rick drives over one of the speed bumps and I lose my balance and start falling sideways.

"Careful," Daryl mutters as he grabs my wrist and pulls me back to sit down.

"Thanks," I whisper and he grunts in response. The truck finally comes to a stop and Daryl and I both hop out.

"There's a few stragglers," Rick says as he pulls out his knife. "Most of the others are gone. We can take these down."

"We gotta make this quick, man," Shane says as he rubs his head. I quickly rush to his side and grab his arm as he starts to stumble around.

"Shane, you need to go sit in the truck," I whisper-yell.

"Beatrix, I'm fine. This needs to be done quickly," Shane shakes me off and walks back over to the trailer.

"Beatrix, I need you to guide me to the trailer's hookup," Rick says to me.

"Got it," I nod my head while he gets into the truck and starts backing it up.

I wave my hands, showing him which way to cut the wheel until he's finally lined up with the trailer hookup. T-Dog, Shane, and Rick rush to the hookups and begin to get the trailer attached to the truck. Daryl and Otis are busy taking out the few walkers still left here. I stand there feeling helpless beacuse there's nothing for me to do. There was really no point in me being here, but I am, so I decide to attempt to help Daryl and Otis.

"Back the hell up, Beatrix. You're gonna get yourself killed," Daryl yells at me as I stand beside of him.

"I'll be fine," I roll my eyes and turn to my left to see Otis fighting off a walker. It's closing in on the left side of his neck and he can't seem to push it off. Knowing I'll be no help at all, I smack Daryl's very-healthy-arm, "Daryl, look!"

"Shit," he mutters and reloads his crossbow, shooting an arrow straight through the walker's skull. Otis lets out a yell and drops to his knees, pulling the walker with him. Daryl continues with the other walkers while I rush to Otis' side.

"Otis, what- oh my God," I put my hand over my mouth and fall down in front of him. Daryl's arrow had went clean through the walker's head and straight through Otis' nose, still completely inside of both of them.

"Get it out," Otis says as he grabs my hands and pushes them to his nose.

"I can't remove it," I shake my head and attempt to calm him down. "It'll risk bleeding and we don't need that right now."

"Do something!" He sighs in desperation and I try to think quickly.

Despite how grossed out I am, I call for Daryl to come over to me. He lets out a string of curse words when he sees Otis, but I don't even acknowledge them when I order him to pull the walker off the end of the arrow while I hold it still in his nose. My left hand keeps his face still and my right holds the arrow as still as I can while Daryl rips the walker off the end.

"We need to get you into the truck. Now," I help Otis to his feet and manage to get him into the back seat of the truck.

"Lucky me, right?" He tries to joke, but it falls flat. I keep hold of the arrow, not letting it move too much. Even though it's just in his nose, it could completely shatter the cartilage.

"What happened?" Rick frantically asks as he slides into the driver's seat and T-Dog gets shotgun.

"Crossbow accident," I mumble, keeping my focus on Otis' nose.

"He okay?" Rick starts driving out of this place with the trailer hooked up and Shane and Daryl in the truck bed.

"I'm fine," Otis starts to nod, but I stop him.

"No speaking. Don't move your head," I order before directing my attention to Rick. "Our plan worked!"

"It did," he smiles into the rear view mirror while trying to get back to the farm as quickly as possible.

"What the hell happened?" Hershel asks as I approach the farm house with Otis.

"Daryl accidentally shot him," I shake my head and get Otis into the living room. Maggie notices the scene and runs off to bring me my supplies.

"The one with the crossbow?" Hershel demands, seeming rather angry.

"Yes," I reply, calmly. Maggie returns with my things and I get to work on Otis' nose.

"I want him off my land," Hershel states.

"He saved my life," Otis says and I shush him.

"He did," I nod. "Walker was trying to get at his neck and Daryl shot it. The arrow just happened to pass through Otis' nose on the way."

"That doesn't-"

"I shot the kid," Otis speaks up again. "And he shot me. We're even now. No need to make them leave."

"Can we discuss this after I get the arrow out of his nose?" I ask and everyone shuts up.

"I didn't do a damn thing wrong," Daryl shouts.

"Daryl, you did kind of shoot an arrow through his nose," I sigh.

"Didn't do it intentionally," he grunts and wipes the sweat off of his face.

"Yes, Daryl, I know," I place a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugs it off.

"Bastard should be greatful that I saved his life," he continues yelling.

"He is. Hershel just isn't too happy right now, but it'll be okay," I try to calm him down. It doesn't work. "Just don't go around him for a while. He wanted you gone, but Rick and I talked him out of it."

"Whatever," he sighs and lays down.

"On the bright side," I smile. "We got my trailer!"

"I still don't want that other damn pole," he shakes his head and turns his back towards me.

"You'll come around," I say before falling asleep.

* * *

 _I really appreciate all of you guys reading! Don't forget to fav and follow. Reviews really make my day!_


	12. Chapter 12: Dixon Down

**Beatrix**

"Good morning," I smile at Carol.

"Morning, Beatrix," she gives me a small smile and continues folding the laundry.

"Got any plans for today?" I ask, grabbing a shirt off the line and deciding to help her

"Well, I kind of had this idea," she says.

"What time is it?" Lori asks, stepping out of her tent. "Why'd you all let me sleep so late?"

"You looked like you needed it," Carol says. "Like I was just getting ready to tell Beatrix, I had an idea that I wanted to run by you."

"What is it?" Lori asks, joining in on folding laundry.

"I was thinking about that nice kitchen they have in there and how much I wouldn't mind cookin' in a real kitchen again," Carol smiles. "Maybe we could cook dinner for Hershel and his family."

"That's a wonderful idea," Lori nods her head and looks at me. "What do you think?"

"I think everybody would love that," I respond and Carol's smile only widens.

"Lori, would you mind extending the invitation?" Carol drops the shirt she was folding into the basket. "You're Rick's wife, which kind of makes you our unofficial First Lady. It'd sound a lot better coming from you."

"Alright," Lori nods. "Do you wanna help cook, Beatrix?"

"I will if you need me to," I shrug. "I'm not the best cook ever."

"You'll do fine, sweetie," she squeezes my shoulder. She's actinglike I'm a child, but I'm not. At the most she's like four years older than me.

"I'm gonna go organize my trailer. That's where I'll be if you need me," I lay the last shirt in the basket and walk over to my trailer.

"Beatrix," Rick calls and waves me over to where he was. "What are your plans for today?"

"I was just gonna move all of my other medical supplies into the trailer and start organizing," I point to the trailer behind me. "Is there something you need me to do?"

"We were just gonna get new search grids today, but if you need to do your trailer that's fine," Rick sighs.

"I'd be more than happy to help look if that's what you need me to do," I say.

"I'm gonna take a horse and head up to this ridge," Daryl points to a place on the map laid out on the hood of the car. "I'll get a bird's eye view of the whole grid. If she's up there, I'll see her."

"Maybe you'll find your chupacabra up there too," T-Dog says sarcastically.

"Chupacabra?" Rick and I ask at the same time.

"You've never heard the story?" Dale asks and Rick and I shake our heads. "First night in camp back in Atlanta, Daryl tells us about this time he went squirrel hunting and saw a chupacabra."

"Seriously?" I laugh and Daryl rolls his eyes.

"You best stop laughing," Daryl points his finger at me, which just makes me laugh harder.

"You belive in a blood sucking dog?" I ask, very amused at the whole situation.

"You believe in dead people walkin' around?" He retorts.

"Daryl, you should take her with you again," Rick says as Daryl gets his flannel buttoned up.

"Nah, I'm better on my own," he says.

"I wanna go with you," I say, completely forgetting about my trailer.

"People in hell want slurpees," Daryl slings his crossbow over his back and walks off.

"Guess I'll stick to my trailer," I laugh softly and head off to start getting organized.

"Come in," I call to whoever's knocking on the door. To my surprise, Shane walks in, shutting and locking the door behind him. "Whatcha need, Shane?"

"Second round," he places the small vile of walker blood on the shelf in front of me.

"I think we should wait until tomorrow. Just to make sure you're fine," I look up at him.

"Can't you just look and me and tell that I'm fine?" He puts his hands on his hips.

"Shane, I saw you yesterday at the school. You got dizzy and almost fell over. We don't need you unable to help. It's not worth it," I shake my head and stand up.

"If you don't do it, I'll do it myself. What we need is an immunity, and if that means risking my life and feeling a little under the weather, then so be it," Shane takes the vile and turns to walk out, but I grab his arm.

"Sit down on the bed," I sigh and grab a needle from one of the already organized shelves.

"Glad to see you chane your mind," Shane says as he unbuttons his shirt. "You goin' for a larger dose this time?"

"No, since it's so soon I'll give you the same amount," I grab a small square of gauze and rip off a piece of medical tape with my teeth.

"Don't I need blood thinners or somethin'?" He pushes his shirt off his left shoulder.

"Need your other shoulder," I mutter as I draw up the blood. "No blood thinners. We don't need you bleeding out from a paper cut or something."

"Whatever you say," he winces as I push the needle into his arm, but waits until I have the gauze on to move.

"Walker!" Someone shouts from outside. Shane and I look at eachother before running out of the trailer, Shane not even bothering to button his shirt.

"Just the one?" He asks Andrea, who's on top of the RV, pointing a rifle at the walker in the distance. "It's just one, we can take care of it."

"Hershel wanted to deal with the walkers!" Rick yells, despite Glenn, Shane and T-Dog all grabbing weapons and heading out into the field.

"They're going crazy," I whisper to Dale and he nods. Rick grabs his gun from the RV and starts running with the others, yelling at Andrea to not shoot.

"Andrea, don't," Dale warns.

"Go away, Dale," she says as she lays down on her stomach and tries to get a good aim.

"Andrea, you mighty accidentally shoot somebody and I really don't want to have to do surgery on anybody today. Just let them handle it," I try to reason with her, but it's no use. She pulls the trigger and she couldn't hide the smile on her face.

"No! No!" Rick screams at us from the field. I look to Andrea and her smile slowly fades.

"I told you," I mutter before taking off in a run to the group of men. I told her she was going to accidentally shoot someone, but she wouldn't listen to me.

"Oh god," I hear Andrea freak out from behind me.

"Who was it?" I as once I get to the men. They are holding up someone who's clearly unconscious and I immediately recognize him as Daryl.

"Is he dead?" Andrea asks.

"Just passed out. You only grazed him," Rick says as Hershel starts yelling from the farmhouse.

"What happened to him? He's wearing ears," Glenn points to the necklace of walker ears strung aroung Daryl's neck.

"I have no idea, but Hershel doesn't need to see that. Especially after what happened yesterday," I rip the necklace from around his neck and stuff it into the pocket of my lab coat.

"Guys, isn't this Sophia's doll?" T-Dog asks from behind us. He's holding up a doll that had dropped from Daryl's belt.

"Yea," Rick sighs and continues dragging Daryl towards the farmhouse. "Where do you want us to take him?" It takes me a minute to realize that he's talking to me.

"My medical trailer," I point to it in the distance and run ahead of them to start getting everything ready.

Normally, I'm completley amazing in these types of situations, but this time I'm not. This was my entire job- staying calm during traumatic situations and operating on people. Every time before this one, I was fine and prepared, but something's different now. My hands are shaking, I keep on dropping all of the things I pick up, and I'm basiclly tripping over my own feet. I smack my own cheeks a few times and sigh. Get it together, Beatrix! I need to take care of Daryl and make sure he doesn't die. I don't even know how I would handle it if he died, which is exactly why I need to get my crap together and fix him.

"Beatrix?" Rick calls from outside of the trailer. He opens the door and starts to bring Daryl in, who is still unconcious.

"Put him on the first bed," I point to the bed closest to the door and they lay him down.

"Anything you need?" Rick asks as he wipes the sweat from his forehead.

"Water pail, rag, and a lamp. It's gonna get dark soon," I pull my stool up beside of Daryl and drag the supplies cart over.

"Be right back," Rick nods and heads out the door. Shane and Glenn are still standing there when Hershel walks in.

"What in God's name is going on?" Hershel yells, motioning to Daryl.

"Hershel, please, he's injured. Can it at least wait until I've got him taken care of?" I plead while attempting to hold Daryl up long enough to look at his bullett wound. Shane sees me struggling and hold's Daryl's body up for me.

"He shot Otis and stole one of my horses," Hershel says, his face turning red from anger. "This is unacceptable and you know it."

"He had good intentions," I sigh, knowing Hershel has a point. Though he really shouldn't be mad over the whole Otis thing.

"Bea," Shane diverts my attention back to Daryl, who is waking up.

"The hell?" Daryl mumbles, reaching up to touch his head wound.

"Don't touch your head," I grab his hand and gently place it back down beside of him on the bed. "Do you remember what happened?"

"Where's my horse?" Hershel demands.

"If it's smart it left the country," Daryl scoffs, trying to move.

"Stay still," I hold his shoulders to keep him from moving. "I need you to tell me what happened so that I know how to treat it."

"Not in front of them," he says so that only I can hear him. I sigh and finish wrapping his head before chasing everyone out.

"Hershel, we will deal with this later. The most important thing right now is Daryl's health and that's what I'm goin to focus on," I say in the nicest tone possible.

"Alright," Hershel nods his head. "As soon as he's better, we need to have a talk."

"We'll have one," I assure him before talking to everyone in the room. "I need everyone out now. Daryl needs stitches and I need space to work."

"Holler if you need anything," Shane tells me before following Glenn and Hershel out. Rick comes in immediately after and gives me the things I asked for before I kick him out too.

"Now tell me," I grab the water bucket and rag and start cleaning the dirt and blood off of his arms and chest. I notice that he has deep scars on his chest that look like they're lash marks, but I don't say anything.

"Horse bucked me off and threw me down a cliff into a water hole," he laughs. "Accidentally shot myself with a bolt and got this nasty son of a bitch." He lifts up the side of his shirt revealing a gross looking hole in his side.

"Did it go all the way through? Don't tell me you pulled it out," I begin examining it and feeling his stomach to make sure there's no internal bleeding. He has a very-healthy-stomach to match his very-healthy-arms.

"I had to," he shrugs and crosses his arms. "Walker was comin' at me and I needed to kill it."

"Couldn't you have used you knife?" I half yell as I run around looking for peroxide. "I told you yesterday that you should never pull out an impaled object. It could be blocking an artery and keep you from bleeding out, and once it's removed you could-"

"Don't care about the medical shit," Daryl reminds me. "I'm fine. What's it matter?"

"What matters is that you could have not been fine," I pour the peroxide into his arrow wound and he winces. "Lay on your side."

"What's it matter to you?" He grunts as he moves like I told him to.

"It matters because I care about you," I shrug, even though he can't see me.

It suddenly dawns on me why I was shaking earlier. In medical school, they always teach you not to practice on anybody that you care deeply about and have a personal relationship with. They say that you clam up and that things that normally wouldn't bother you, have a terrible effect on you. I never had a problem with that because I never had anybody I cared that deeply about, until now I guess.

"Stop," he jerks his body as I start touching his wound.

"Take your shirt off," I mumble. "Stop what?"

"Stop actin' like you give a damn about me," he grunts.

"What are you talking about?" I question, thoroughly confused. "Take your shirt off."

"You know exactly what I'm talkin' about," Daryl yells, finally taking his shirt off. His back is covered in the same assortment of long and short deep scars. "You're just some fancy ass doctor that feels bad for me. I don't need your pity."

"Daryl, that's not true," I say, giving him small shot of lidocaine at the arrow entry wound before starting to stich him up.

"You know damn well it is," he puts his hand on the back of his head. "You think I'm some stupid, redneck trash and you're nice to me because ya feel sorry for me. Just go ahead and stop."

"That's ridiculous," I tell him as I continue stitching up his side. "I'm nice to you because I like you and I want to be nice to you. And I definitely don't think you're redneck trash or stupid."

"You're a prissy, college educated bitch. People like you don't talk to people like me. It don't work like that," he yells again.

"You have a concussion. Because I know you aren't thinking rationally right now," I yell, throwing down my stitching equipment and make my way over to the other side of the bed to look at his face. "Stay on your side. Don't need you go and pop a stitch too."

"I ain't got no damn concussion. I know what I'm talkin' about and I'd appreciate it if you'd just leave me the hell alone," he throws his hand around in the air for emphasis.

"Stop it!" I stomp my foot. "I don't know why the hell you think I don't care about you, or why the hell you think I feel sorry for you, but it's bullshit."

"Drop the act, Beatrix! Everyone around here knows that somethin' ain't right here," he runs his hand through his hair and looks up at me. "I don't need you."

"Okay, wow," I let out a sigh of frustration and drop down onto the stool. "I don't understand why it's so hard for you to accept that you have someone that cares about you."

"Because nobody cares about me," he scoffs. "Merle was the only one to ever give half a damn about me, and now he's gone. Some things never change, Trixy."

"You are so wrong," I look down at him and he meets my eyes.

Before I can think about what I'm doing, I lean down and gently press my lips to his. He's obviously caught off guard, but he doesn't kiss back. He only uses his free arm to push me off of him. I'm not even gonna pretend I don't feel the small sting of rejection as he looks at me like I've lost my mind.

"The hell do you think you're doin'?" Daryl yells, yet again.

"I shouldn't have done that," I whisper. "I'm sorry."

"Damn right you shouldn't have," he scoffs. "I don't know what you think you're gonna get out of this."

"Out of what?" I push my hair behind my ear.

"Nothin," he waves me off and diverts his gaze to the celing.

"Lori and Carol made dinner in the house tonight," I try to change the subject. "I'll go get you some."

Daryl doesn't say anything as I get up and walk out of the trailer and head to the farmhouse. Tears surface on my eyes, but I force them away. He's clearly not capable of thinking straight right now, because I know he couldn't mean that. But then again, he could be telling the truth. I just couldn't possibly wrap my head around the fact that he thinks I don't care about him when I clearly do.

"Hey, Beatrix, what's wrong?" Lori asks, walking up to me in the kitchen.

"Nothing. It's all fine," I shake my head and force a smile. "I just came in to get something for Daryl to eat. He's had to have stitches and he got shot in the head."

"But he's fine, right?" Lori starts fixing up two plates.

"Yeah, he's good," I nod. "I'm so sorry I didn't get to help you and Carol. I was just so busy stitching up Daryl, I didn't have time to come inside."

"Honey, it's fine. You were needed elsewhere," she smiles and hands me a tray with two plates and two glasses. "You need to eat too."

"Thank you," I take the tray from her and walk back out to the trailer.

"Was hoping you wouldn't come back," Daryl grumbles, quickly pulling the sheets up over his torso.

"I already saw them," I sit the tray down on the supplies cart. "You don't have to hide them. You also don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"I don't want to," he lets the sheet fall as he sits up and takes his plate of food.

"That's completely fine," I begin eating my food. It's been a long time since I've had anything and I'm starving. "I wouldn't want you to tell me if you weren't comfortable with it."

"Don't wanna talk about it," he says and I sigh.

"I'm sorry for kissing you," I say. "Even though I enjoyed it and you think I only done it to prove a point. Which is kind of true because I wanted to prove that I care about you, even if you don't believe it."

"You ain't got no reason to care," he shrugs. "And I didn't mean what I said earlier. Merle just got into my head."

"Merle?" I look at him from my stool.

"Well I just," he tries to form a coherent sentence, but he's struggling.

"Did you have hallucinations?" I drop my fork and scoot closer to him.

"I saw Merle, but-"

"I knew you had a concussion!" I smile, but then force my mouth into a straight line.

That's why he was a jerk fifteen minutes ago, and now he's being semi-normal. His behavior is completely normal, just not acceptable. Even if he has a concussion, he shouldn't be saying those things, especially to me when I'm only trying to help him. And even more so considering I just attempted to kiss him, and he completly rejected me. Though I won't say anything about it because he's sick and I don't want to upset him.

I push my fingers to his neck to take his pulse, then take his blood pressure. His pulse is fast like it was before, which still concerns me, but his blood pressure is fine. His pupils dialate fine and he only has a small about of trouble following the pen when I move it in front of his face.

"So how bad is it, Doctor Zedler?" Daryl asks with a smirk.

"It's only mild," I assure him. "You just need to stay awake for a while to make sure there's no brain damage."

"You might have to help keep me awake," he mumbles. "'Cause I'm tired as hell."

"Alright," I nod. "Wanna learn how to properly dress a wound?"

"God, no," he shakes his head in protest.

"Too bad," I pull out some gauze. "I'm gonna teach you."

"Beatrix," I hear a voice whispering my name. My eyes blink open to see that I'm still sitting in the same stool as last night with my upper body laying on Daryl's bed.

"Hmm?" I question, pulling myself into a sitting position.

"I hate to bother you, but Shane needs you," I recognize the voice as Rick's and suddenly jerk fully awake.

"Is he okay? Did he collapse?" I ask, pulling my shoes on and following Rick out the door.

"He has a nosebleed," Rick looks back at me as we're walking. "But it hasn't stopped bleeding and it's been over half an hour."

"Half an hour?" My eyes widen and I start walking faster.

It's early in the morning and there's only a couple of people awake, but it's light enough out to where I can see. Once I get to Shane, he's sitting in a chair by the fire and there's literally a puddle of blood on the ground in front of him. His head is tilted all the way back, and I sigh at the sight. I grab the rag that's in his hand, fold it up, and place it over his nose, pinching his nostrils together hard.

"Rick, time me. Tell me when it's been ten minutes," I look to him and he nods, checking his watch.

"You gotta pinch that hard?" Shane asks me, and I push his head foreward.

"Yes, or it won't stop," I muttler, keeping his head pushed down. "Did you have your head tilted back like that the whole time?"

"Yeah why?" he looks up at me.

"Shane oh my God, you can't do that," I let out another sigh. "It makes the blood fall back down your throat and it could make you puke."

"That explains a lot," he points to the ground beside of him where there's another puddle of blood puke.

"Jesus Christ," I shake my head. "Blow your nose."

"What?"

"Blow your nose," I loosen my grip on his nostrils and look to Rick. "Can you get me another rag or something?"

"Yeah," he nods and walks off.

Shane blows his nose like I ask, and a lot of blood comes out. It was definitley enough to exceed the boundaries of the rag and splatter all over my scrubs. I'm suddenly very glad that I didn't take the time to put my lab coat on. If Shane would have sprayed blood onto that, we would have fought.

Rick comes back with another rag and tells me that it's been ten minutes. I check to see if it's still bleeding, and of course, it is. So I continue pinching his nostrils and forcing him to blow his nose until the bleeding finally stops. It takes three more ten minute intervals, but it does stop, which is good. By the time it's all over, most of the people in camp were awake, and many of them stopped by to see what was up with Shane.

"Sometimes you get nosebleeds due to foregin substances in your body," I say so only he can hear. "This is normal. You're fine, but you still need to be careful."

"You sure?"

"One thousand percent," I nod and give him a reassuring smile. "Sorry about the bruises you'll have on your nose. I had to do it."

"It's fine," Shane stands up. "Thank you, Beatrix."

"You're welcome!" I smile and walk off.

* * *

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	13. Chapter 13: To Kill a Mockingbird

**Beatrix**

"Good morning," I smile at Daryl who is just now waking up. It's been at least six hours since I woke up to deal with Shane's nosebleed and I've been in my trailer organizing supplies ever since.

"The hell is in my arm?" He asks while pulling at the tubing.

"An IV," I get up and walk over to him.

"Take it out," he holds his arm out to me, but I push it back down. "Get it out of my arm right now, Beatrix."

"You needed fluids," I lie. The truth is, I just like watching how upset he gets over my IV pole. "So I gave you an IV. You're a deep sleeper. I have no idea how you didn't wake up when I did it."

"If I needed fluids, you coulda' just gave me a bottle of water," he grumbles and sits up.

"Different kind of fluids, Daryl," I laugh and start checking all of his vitals again. "You need to stay in bed for a couple of days so you don't pop your stitches. You need to take it easy, too. You're gonna' be super sore, so it's best if you just stay down for a couple of days."

"Do I have to stay here?" Daryl asks, "And do I have to keep this thing in my arm?"

"Yes, you need to keep your IV," I laugh. "I can help you get to the tent after I get done in here."

"Alright," he nods and leans back, putting his non-IV arm behind his head.

"Wanna' help me?" I ask, holding up a container of gauze and syringes.

"I ain't got nothin' better to do," he shrugs and I pass him the container along with another empty one. "What am I supposed to do with these?"

"Separate them and fit them neatly in each container" I start grabbing more containers of gauze, syringes and medical tape. "There's a whole lot, so organize them neatly and make them look presentable."

"Who the hell you gonna' be presentin' it for?" He raises an eyebrow as he dumps everything out onto the bed in front of him.

"Be careful, and please don't stab yourself," I shake my head and sit back down on the floor to organize the actual medicine. "I'm presenting it for me and I want it to look nice."

"You're one of a kind, Trixy," Daryl lets out a small laugh, which makes me smile.

/

"I ain't doin' it. Might as well give up," Daryl crosses his arms the best he can with the IV in his arm.

"If you don't, I will, and I have terribly girly handwriting," I force the sharpie into his hand.

"I'll rip the damn thing out of my arm," he places his hand over the IV port and I quickly place my hands over his to keep him from doing so.

"That's not a safe thing to do," I warn him. "I just need you to sign it so that we know whose is whose."

"This one is shorter. We ain't gonna' have a problem telling them apart," he sighs.

"Fine. I'll just stay in here with you all the time until you get ready to get up and moving again," I shrug my shoulders. "And you won't even be able to pee without me watching. I can get super annoying too."

"Damn it, Beatrix," Daryl rubs his hand over his face, careful to avoid his bullet wound. "Fine, I'll sign it, but I'm only puttin' my initials."

"Thank you," I cross my arms over my chest and smile as he marks the IV pole with 'D.D.' "Now I'll help you to our tent if you want."

"Are we bringin' the pole?" He asks, trying to get up from the bed without causing himself too much pain.

"Yes, Daryl, we're bringing the pole," I walk over and wrap my arm around his waist, helping him walk as he drags the IV pole behind us. "You need your fluids, I've already told you."

"I hate you," he grunts and I frown, but continue to help him walk to the tent.

"I know," I mumble and he stops walking.

"Ya know I don't," he says, brushing my hair behind my ear for me.

"You made it perfectly clear last night when you told me to 'stay the hell away from you'," I scoff and push him to keep on walking.

"Thought you weren't mad about that?" He asks as he stumbles, trying to keep up with me.

"I'm not mad," I shake my head. "I'm hurt. There's a difference, you know?"

"I done told you I didn't mean any of it," he practically yells.

"That doesn't mean it didn't hurt my feelings, Daryl," I shake my head and stop walking once we're halfway to our tent, turning to face him. " Trust me when I say that I'll be the first to forgive somebody for their horrible actions when they have a medical reason behind them, but what you said was totally uncalled for. I gave you no reason to think that I don't care about you. Actually, I gave you one hell of a reason to think that I do care."

"Beatrix, let me explain," Daryl says, but I hold a hand up, shushing him.

"No, I get it. You think I'm playing a game with you," I let out a sarcastic laugh—so much for not saying anything to him. "Believe whatever you want, be my guest, but just know that that's not the case. I'm only trying to help you and be your friend. There's no reason for you to be rude to me, and if you still want me to leave you alone, I will."

"That's not what I want," he mumbles and looks down at the ground.

"Then what do you want?" I ask, grabbing his hand that wasn't holding onto the IV pole for support.

"Why are you so keen on carin' 'bout me?" Daryl looks down at me as I continue to hold his right hand with both of mine.

"Because it's what I do," I smile, my anger slowly fading away. "It's most of the reason I became a doctor. I care about good people that deserve to be cared about. If there's anybody out there that deserves to be cared about, it's you, Daryl Dixon. Sure, you can be a jerk and say some terrible things, but you're a good person. You act all tough and cold in front of everyone, but I know you're not."

"I'm sorry for sayin' I hoped Jim would turn and rip your neck out," he whispers. "You're too good to have someone say that to you."

"That was like two weeks ago," I let out a sigh as I played with his fingers in my hand. "You're different than you were then. I don't know what changed, but you're better than that now."

"How do you just forgive me so easy?" He questions as he shifts from one foot to the other.

"I'm not sure," I shrug my shoulders before placing a soft kiss onto his knuckles. "Come on, you need to lay down."

"Do I still gotta' keep the pole?" He asks as we approach the tent.

"Yes, it's short enough to stand in the tent," I smirk and start sitting it up inside before helping Daryl in.

"I think I'm bleedin'," Daryl touches his side and sure enough, his shirt has a small bloodstain forming on it.

"How did you even manage to do that?" I sigh and roll his shirt up to his belly button so I can look at his stitches. "You literally ripped out three stitches just by laying down."

"I dunno'," he mumbles and throws his arm behind his head, watching me work on his abdomen.

"Good think I kept a first aid kit in the tent," I say while going through my bag and pulling it out. "If I would have had to go all the way back to that trailer, you would have needed even more stitches."

"You're insane," he shakes his head at me.

"I'm perfectly sane," I mumble, getting out a stitching kit. "I don't have any numbing medicine, so it's gonna' hurt."

"Been through worse," he shrugs, but still winces as I shove the needle through his skin.

"All done," I smile and sit back on my heels once I've finished repairing his stitches. "It's probably gonna' leave a really nasty scar."

"I'll add it to the collection," he scoffs and shakes his head.

"I didn't mean to-" I sigh and look back at his stomach.

There are a couple of them on his abdomen, so I trace one with my finger and he jerks back. I ignore it and trace the other one, getting halfway over it before he grabs my wrist and forces me to stop. His eyes meet mine and he gives me a look of warning.

"Don't," he shakes his head and releases my wrist. I quickly roll his shirt back down and scoot back.

"I'm sorry," I say, crossing my legs Indian style.

"It ain't your fault," he shrugs as we hear footsteps approaching.

"Daryl?" I hear Andrea's voice outside of the tent.

"Come in!" I call. She unzips the tent and takes a seat beside of me.

"I'm terribly sorry for shooting you," Andrea looks at Daryl. "I should have listened to Beatrix."

"It's fine," Daryl nods. "You were tryin' to protect the group."

"Well, I brought you this," she hands him a book and he quickly flips through the pages.

"No pictures?" He raises an eyebrow and I let out a small laugh.

"Bye, Daryl," she laughs too and gets up to leave.

"You shoot me again," Daryl says as she's walking out. "You best pray I'm dead."

"What book is it?" I take it from his hands and look at the cover. "Daryl, this is the single best book in all of literature."

"Never heard of it," he shrugs.

"You've never heard of Atticus Finch?" I ask, my eyes widening as he shakes his head. "Bob Ewell? Boo Radley? Not even Tom Robinson?"

"No?" He looks at me as if I'm speaking in another language.

"You have to read it!" I hand the book back to him, but he doesn't take it.

"Not much of a reader," he readjusts to a comfier position. "Why don't you read it to me?"

"Seriously?" I raise my eyebrow.

"Mhm," he nods and I open the book to the first page. His IV hand moves to my knee as in begin to read.

 _"When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm broken badly at the elbow..."_

/

"Aren't you hungry?" I ask as I fold the corner of the page I'm on. I sit it down beside of me and place my hand on top of Daryl's, which still hasn't left my knee. "You haven't eaten all day."

"Starving," he admits.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier? I would have gotten you something," I look into his eyes.

"Didn't wanna' interrupt your readin'. Ya got a pretty voice for reading," Daryl gives me the slightest grin, which makes me full on smile.

"Thank you," I mumble, attempting—and failing—to hide a blush. "I'll be back with food in a few minutes."

"No problem," he mumbles as I exit the tent and make my way to the campsite where everyone else is.

"Hi, Beatrix," Lori smiles at me. "I haven't seen you all day."

"I know!" I frown. "I've been trying to get the trailer organized, and I've been taking care of Daryl all day. Daryl care is like a full time job."

"I'd say so," she laughs, and I laugh along with her.

"He's already popped three of his stitches just by laying down," I shake my head. "So I've got him on bed rest until his side heals up."

"I assume you'll be taking care of him until then?" She smirks.

"Yeah," I ignore what she's implying and start dipping out two bowls of whatever soup Carol has cooked up. "I feel terrible for not contributing to the group though."

"Oh, honey, you contribute the most to this group," Lori smiles and hands me two bottles of water that I tuck under my arm. "You're our doctor. You have earned your spot in this group and you don't have to make up for anything else. Taking care of us and saving our lives is enough."

"Thank you, Lori," I smile and pull her into the best side hug I can manage right now.

"We need to talk," Shane stops me from walking any further away from Lori.

"About what?" I ask, shifting from one foot to another.

"When am I gonna' get more?" He asks under his breath.

"Shane, you're literally showing physical weaknesses because I've been injecting you with walker blood and I've only done it twice," I sigh.

"I can push through them. We need this to work," he rubs his head.

"I know we do, but your health is more important than an immunity right now," I tell him.

"Beatrix, we _need_ this," Shane puts his hands on his hips. "Let's do another one right now, and if anything happens I'll send Rick to get you as soon as I can."

"Fine," I mumble and walk to the trailer. Shane opens the door for me and I sit the food down on one of the shelves until we get done. "Isn't your arm sore from all of these shots?"

"Yeah, I can barely move it," he says as he shrugs off his shirt.

I grab the bottle of walker blood, a syringe, and a Band-Aid. This time though, I draw up twice the normal amount I'd given him before. His immune system has had enough time to familiarize itself with the virus so that it can fight it off easier. We're almost out of blood, so we'll have to see about getting more soon.

"Next time you're out or near a walker, we need more blood," I hand him an empty vile and a syringe from one of the containers. "I gave you more this time, and from now on I'll increase the dosage. It is extremely important that you tell me anything that could be wrong with you. Maybe a headache, hallucinations are possible, even if you cough I want to know."

"Alright," Shane nods and takes the bottle and syringe from me, then pulls his shirt back on. "Anything happens, you'll be the first to know."

"Good," I smile and pick the food back up. "When are you planning on doing gun training? Daryl says I need to learn to protect myself."

"Daryl said that, huh?" Shane raises an eyebrow and smirks.

"Yeah," I blush and focus on my feet while I walk.

"I'm takin' out the first group tomorrow. You're more than welcome to come," he laughs.

"That'd be great," I mumble and walk off back towards mine and Daryl's tent. I'm interrupted though by Hershel calling out for me from his porch.

"Beatrix," Hershel waves me over to him. Daryl is going to be so mad. I've been gone for at least half an hour and he's hungry.

"Hi, Hershel," I give him a small smile.

"I still need to talk to Daryl," he says as he rocks back and forth in his chair.

"I figured," I sigh. "He can't leave the tent because if he does, he'll pop his stitches again, and he needs his rest tonight."

"So I assume you'll come and get me tomorrow at the best possible time for us to talk?" He raises his eyebrow.

"Of course," I nod and smile. "How's Otis' nose doing?"

"Still looks rough, but you did a good job at fixing it up. It's almost impressive," Hershel answers.

"Thank you," I try to balance both of our bowls on my right arm as I push my hair back with my left. "Daryl honestly didn't mean to shoot him either. I was there too, and he saved Otis' life. The arrow just went a little farther than expected."

"I understand," he says as he gets up and walks into his house.

That was definitely weird. Just yesterday Hershel was practically yelling at Daryl, and now he says he understands? I'm so confused. I shrug it off as I finally get to walk back to our tent. By the time I'm there, it's almost dark.

"The hell took ya so long?" Daryl asks once I get in and hand him his bowl and water.

"Shane and Hershel wanted to talk to me," I say, taking a bite of my soup.

"'Bout what?" He says as he turns on the battery powered lamp we have.

"I asked Shane about going to gun training and Hershel was asking about you," I wiggle my eyebrows at him and he rolls his eyes.

"What'd that old man say 'bout me this time?"

"He wants to talk to you tomorrow about all of the stuff you've done," I shrug and finish off my soup at the same time Daryl finishes his. "But he says he understands the Otis thing."

"He should," Daryl scoffs. "I saved that jackass' life."

"Don't be mean," I warn.

"Ain't bein' mean when it's the truth," Daryl shrugs and lays his bowl down beside of his IV pole.

"You didn't have to call him a jackass," I sigh and look around the tent for the small book I had been reading earlier.

"Here," Daryl pulls it out from underneath his pillow and hands it to me. I'm not really sure why it was there, but it's whatever.

"Should I read another chapter before we go to sleep?" I ask, crossing my legs and scooting closer to his side.

"Yeah," Daryl situates his pillow and lays his hand on my knee just like he did earlier.

 _"Catching Walter Cunningham in the schoolyard gave me some pleasure, but when I was rubbing his nose in the dirt Jem came by and told me to stop..."_

* * *

Anybody absolutely love TKM as well? Beatrix sure does, lol. Thanks for reading! Don't forget to follow, fav, and review!


	14. Chapter 14: Stitches

**Beatrix**

"Keep your right arm locked in place, and use your left to move around," Shane instructs me as he moves my hands to the correct position. It feels weird using my right hand to do things, but Shane knows what he's talking about so I'll trust him. Just like he trusts me with the blood.

"Which hand do I use to pull the trigger?" I ask, aiming at the bottles lined up on the fence.

"Right hand," Shane says as he steps back from me. "Now focus, aim, and fire."

"Alright," I nod my head and take a deep breath.

I close one of my eyes and aim for my target. My hand is shaky, so I can't get it quite right, but I pull the trigger anyway. I'm so far away from the target, and I still don't hit it after completely emptying the chamber of rounds.

"I'm hopeless," I sigh and shake my head.

"You're gonna' need a few days of work," Shane laughed and took the gun from me. "Rick's getting ready to head back to the farm with Beth and Patricia, and the rest of us are gonna' stay a little longer. You should go with them and come back tomorrow."

"If you think that's best, that's what I'll do," I smile and walk off to find Rick.

"Work on your stance!" Shane calls after me as I walk away.

"Shane said I should go back to the farm with you," I tell Rick once I've reached him.

"That's fine," he nods and rubs the stubble on his face. "We're just about to leave."

"I just wanted to let you know before I went to get Hershel. I'm going to bring him back here to talk to you," I tell Daryl once I've reached out tent.

"Wish you wouldn't," he grunts and rolls over on his good side to face me. "You should just stay here and read."

"I'd love to stay and read, but you need to talk to Hershel," I tell him. "You need to be nice to him too. I know that's hard for you to do and all, but at least try. He could kick us off of his land at any time."

"I'll be nice," he mumbles as I get up and head out of the tent towards the house.

"Hello, Hershel," I smile as I walk up to the porch.

"Beatrix," he nods his head towards me in acknowledgement.

"You said I should come get you when it was good time to talk to Darl," I push a piece of hair behind my ear nervously. "It's a good time. He's stable, but he still can't get up. You'll have to go to our tent, but it's kind of far out."

"That's not a problem," Hershel stands up and motions for me to lead the way.

We take our time walking over to the tent. I don't know why, but I'm actually nervous for Daryl. I don't want Hershel to be mad at him or kick him off of the land. I like Daryl, and I know he's a good man, even if everyone else doesn't.

"You can go in and sit down if you want," I tell Hershel once we reach the tent. I push the tent door open and we both take a seat beside of Daryl.

"Beatrix, I'd like to speak with Daryl alone," Hershel looks to me and I nod, getting up and leaving the tent.

I pace back and forth all around the tent while they're in there. There's no shouting so far, so that's a good thing. My eyes land to the sticks beside of the fire pit and I decide to attempt to make Daryl some more arrows. Not that I have the slightest clue how to make them, but I've seen Daryl do it and it doesn't look that hard.

Daryl's knife is still hanging on my left thigh, so I unsheathe it and take a seat with my back to the bricks. My knife slides down the stick as I hold it with my right hand. The more I carve up the stick, the more it starts to look like one of Daryl's arrows, and I feel proud of myself. That is, until I accidentally push the knife over a little too far and slice my right thumb open.

"Dammit, Beatrix," I mumble to myself and immediately clutch my thumb in my left hand to stop the bleeding.

"Have a nice day, Daryl," I hear Hershel say from the other side of the bricks.

I contemplate asking Hershel to help me, but I wouldn't want to risk making him mad again. He seems like he's in a good mood, and I do not want to be the one to screw that up. However, my thumb is bleeding profusely and I desperately need it to stop.

"Daryl," I whisper-yell and I run around the bricks and into the tent, with my thumb dripping blood as I go.

"The hell happened to you?" Daryl asks, sitting up the best he can.

"I need you to stitch my thumb up," I say as I grab my first aid kit and hold my thumb out to him. "Put pressure on it while I get the supplies."

"I ain't got no idea what the hell you think I can do about that," Daryl's eyes widen as he quickly wraps a random one of his shirts around my thumb and holds it as tight as he can.

"Maybe don't hold it that hard," I say through gritted teeth, and he lets up pressure a little bit. "Okay, I need you to take this needle and just thread it through the skin. Do it tight and close it up. I'd do it, but I've learned the hard way that you shouldn't do any form of medical procedure on yourself."

"Ain't this gonna' hurt?" Daryl asks, removing the shirt and sitting all the way up.

"Very much," I nod and attempt a smile. "But you have to do it now. I don't want to pass out from blood loss."

"How'd you even do this?" He tries to distract me as he threads the needle through my thumb.

"I was nervous about you talking to Hershel," I said while taking deep breaths. "So I tried to distract myself by making you more arrows."

"You what?" Daryl raises his eyebrow while still focusing on stitching up my thumb.

"Never let me try to make you more arrows again," I shake my head and finally let out the tears I've been trying to hold back.

It's not that I don't like crying in front of people, I just don't want Daryl to think I'm weak. Daryl seems like the kind of guy to think that crying is weak, but I'm far past the point of caring. Plus, my thumb is actually starting to go numb from hurting so bad.

"Shh, don't cry," Daryl tries to soothe me as he finishes up with the stitches. "You're fine, Trixy."

"I know," I let out a small laugh and wipe the tears from my face. "Can you wrap it? I have the stuff, but I can't do it with one hand."

"Yeah, give it to me," he grabs the gauze from the first aid kit and wraps it around my thumb, taping it off. "Good thing ya taught me how."

"Thank you," I smile, then give him a quick kiss on the cheek. "I'm gonna go see what I can help with around camp."

"You sure ya don't wanna stay and read some more?" Daryl asks as he lays back down.

"I will if you want me to," I smile and move myself into my criss-crossed leg position.

"You've got me curious to what happens," he throws one arm behind his head and places the other on my knee.

"You'll want to punch somebody when you find out," I tell him and reach for the book.

"Damnit, Trixy. No spoilers," he jokes as he gives my knee a small squeeze.

"Calm down, I'm not ruining anything," I I'll my eyes jokingly and turn to the page I was on.

 _"The remainder of my schooldays were no more auspicious than the first.."_

It's been a full week since my first shooting lesson with Shane, and I still suck. No matter how hard I try, I just can't hit the target. Honestly, I'm not even anywhere _near_ the target. Today is different though because I finally told Daryl he could get out of bed and start helping out again. He was hell bent on going to look for Sophia some more, but he's still not in the best condition to be doing something like that, so he's settled for coming to the shooting range with us.

Shane has been acting super weird too. He's been coming to me at least twice a day, demanding more blood. Then when I don't always give it to him, he gets mad and randomly goes to yell at somebody. Most of the time it's Rick, so at least he knows why Shane's acting like a pregnant lady.

At first I thought he was addicted to it, because he's showing all the symptoms of addiction, but then I decided to give him some of my blood instead of the infected. I knew it wouldn't hurt him because I'm O-Negative, so I done it and he didn't notice. So now I'm just going to chalk it all up to the world changing him for the worse and praying that he doesn't go completely crazy. He's my ginny pig and I honestly don't think anybody else would be crazy enough to let me do it to them.

"The hell are ya doin' with your right hand?" Daryl asks from right behind me. I'm startled by him, and I accidentally pull the trigger before turning aroung.

"What?" I ask, pointing my gun at the ground.

"You're left handed, so why are you using your right hand to shoot?" Daryl raises an eyebrow as he steps closer to me.

"Shane said to use my right hand, so that's what I've been doing," I shrug. "How'd you know I was left handed?"

"All I've done for the past week is lay around and watch you do stuff. It wasn't that hard to figure out," he lays his crossbow down. "Jackass didn't think to ask if you used your left or your right. Do the same position, just with your left hand instead."

"Okay," I mumble and try to stand in the right position. "Like this?"

"No," Daryl grunts before wrapping his arms around my body and moving my arms to where they need to be. "Like this. Now shoot."

"Okay," I take a deep breath and point my gun at the glass bottle on the fence line.

The first time I pull the trigger I miss, but Daryl readjusts his arms around mine and I aim again. I can feel his breathing on my neck as he waits for me to shoot, and it sends shivers down my spine. My shoulders relax, and I pull the trigger again. This time, the glass bottle shatters and a smile spreads across my face.

"Told ya you could do it," Daryl whispers into my ear before removing his arms from around me.

"Only because you helped me," I laugh and wrap my arms around his neck before quickly letting go. "I probably shouldn't hug people with a gun in my hand."

"That's probably a good idea," Daryl shows a hint of a smile and backs up some more. "You need to practice some more, then I'll take you to practice on moving targets."

"Sounds good," I nod before getting back into my stance and using the rest of my ammo to shoot down the remaining bottles.

"Hi, Beatrix!" Carl waves and smiles at me from his seat beside the fire.

"Good morning, Carl," I smile back at him while Carol hands me a plate of eggs. "You're looking a lot better."

"I feel better," he nods and pats the seat next to him, where I go and sit down. "You said you'd give me doctor lessons when I was doing better."

"I did say that," I say after taking a bite of eggs. "We can start today if you want. I'm supposed to back to the shooting range with Daryl after breakfast, but I'll teach you when I get back."

"Awesome!" Carl smiles and I ruffle his hair a little.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Glenn pacing back and forth in front of the campfire. He keeps on looking back and forth between Dale and Maggie. Maggie seems to be shaking her head, while Dale is vigorously nodding his. He looks so distressed, and I kinda just want to go give him a hug.

"Glenn, are you okay?" I ask, walking up and placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah," he stops walking and runs his hand over his face. "I've gotta do something."

"What are you talking about?" I question as he steps forward in front of the entire group.

"Um, guys," Glenn nervously looks from Maggie to Dale one last time. "There's walkers in the barn."

The group simultaneously drops what they're doing and runs to the barn, myself included. Shane is the first one there, and he starts banging on the doors. Sure enough, we start to hear the moaning and groaning of walkers. Then Shane starts yelling, and the walkers start beating on the doors and poking their fingers though.

"Oh god," I mutter and turn around, bumping into Daryl. He pats my back as Rick and Shane start arguing.

"You can not tell me that you're okay with this," Shane says to Rick.

"I'm not, but this isn't our land," Rick shakes his head.

"We need to go in there and make this right, or we've just gotta go, man. That's all there is to it," Shane yells.

"Lower your voice," Glenn whisper-yells.

"Shane, you know we can't leave," Rick sighs.

"Why not, Rick? Why not?"

"Because my daughter is still out there," Carol says from the back of the group.

"Alright, now maybe it's time that we maybe start to consider the other possibility," Shane rubs his head like he always does.

"You don't know what the hell you're talkin' about," Daryl drops his hand from my back and walks over to Shane. "I found her damn doll a few days ago!"

"That's right, Daryl. You found a _doll_ ," Shane lets out a sarcastic laugh. "You get a lead in the first fourty-eight hours, maybe. And that was before."

"Shane," Rick scolds him while trying to keep him and Daryl apart.

"I'm just sayin' what needs to be said," Shane yells again. "And let me tell you somethin' else, man. If she was alive out there, and that is a big if, and she saw you comin' all methed out with your buck knife, and geek ears around your neck, she would run in the other direction."

"Shane, stop," I say, trying to get inbetween them.

"No, Beatrix. You tell your damn redneck boyfriend to stop," Shane points to Daryl. "He's the one that's all delusional thinkin' he's gonna find a little girl we all know is dead."

Before I can even register what's happening, Daryl lunges at Shane and punches him in the face. Rick tries to step in between them, but it's useless. I have to take a few steps back as Daryl knocks Shane to the ground, throwing punch after punch.

"Daryl," I walk up behind him and attempt to put a hand on his shoulder to try and stop him before he seriously injures Shane.

Daryl draws his arm back to punch Shane again, but since I'm standing behind him, his elbow lands right into my stomach. I wrap my arms around myself as my butt lands on the ground. Daryl immediately stops and pulls himself off of Shane, then walks over to me.

"Oh hell," his eyes dialate as he looks at me. "Are you alright?"

"Peachy," I sarcastically reply as I hear Rick say he's going to talk to Hershel.

"Beatrix," Lori appears from behind Daryl and offers me and hand to help me up. "Come on, honey."

"Thanks," I mumble and take her hand. She helps me up and walks me back to her tent, leaving Daryl standing alone at the barn.

"Are you okay?" She worriedly asks. "It looks like it hurt."

"It does hurt," I try to laugh it off. "But I'm fine. He didn't mean to hit me."

"Are you sure?" She raises her eyebrow and I nod. "If you say so. But I need to tell you something, and I need your help with it."

"What is it?" I ask, sitting down across from her at the small picnic table they have in their tent.

"I'm pregnant," she sighs and my eyes widen. "I had Glenn get me some abortion pills, but I just don't know what to do. Rick doesn't even know yet. You, Glenn, and Maggie are the only ones."

"Lori, I can't tell you what to do, but I can tell you that abortion pills aren't the right answer," I shake my head and grab her hand from across the table. "If you want rid of it, at least let me do an actual abortion. You're probably too far along for the pills to work unless you took a lot, but then you could take too many and it could cause the uterus wall to rupture and I would have to do an emergency hysterectomy. Trust me, you don't want me to have to do that without any anesthesia either."

"I don't know," she sighs and wipes a few tears from her eyes with her free hand. "If I keep it, do you think you can deliever it?"

"Of course," I nod. "I've helped deliver babies before, and I have the supplies to do it either way."

"Thank you so much," she smiles and I let go of her hand, taking that as my cue to leave. "Please keep this between us."

"Your secret is safe with me," I tell her as I stand in front of the tent door. "But I do think you should tell Rick. He has a right to know, and this isn't a decision you should make alone."

At that, I leave Lori alone in her tent and go to find Shane to see if Daryl gave him anything that needs medical attention. I couldn't imagine what Lori is going through though. She's pregnant and its the end of the world. Bringing a child into this would be a terrible thing to do, but not giving it a chance would be worse. All I can say is that I'm glad I'm not in her position, though I'll be there to help her with whichever way she chooses.

"Shane, medical trailer. Now," I point to the trailer once I see him and he follows me in there. "Sit down on the bed. I need to look at your face."

"Give me more blood while we're in here," Shane says as I put my gloves on to clean up his face.

"You don't need any more," I tell him as I clean his cuts, none of them being bad enough to need stitches. "You're not addicted to it, so I can only guess that you're just really excited to get bit and try it out. And you're going a bit crazy lately, have you noticed? Like earlier, what was that about? I get that you want to keep us safe and all, but you honestly crossed the line, and half of that stuff you said was just unnecessarily rude."

"Beatrix, I'm keeping us alive," he lets out a sarcastic laugh. "If that means me being unnecessarily rude, then so be it. I'd rather have you all alive and pissed off than loving me and dead. You see, Rick doesn't get that. He's afraid to be harsh when he needs to be."

"Shane, I understand, but you seriously need to calm down," I sigh as I finish cleaning his face. "You should listen to Rick. I trust his judgement, and I've been following him for over a month now. I'm still alive. Rick might not want to be harsh, but he has good leadership skills. He knows what he's doing and you should trust him."

"That's bullshit and you know it," Shane pushes me out of the way as he jumps off of the bed.

"I need to know why you're being like this," I step in front of the door so he can't leave. "If it's the blood, I need to know so I'll know that I need to do something different."

"It's not the blood," Shane rubs his head and sighs.

"Then what is it?" I cross my arms over my chest.

"I slept with Lori," he says and I gasp. "We thought Rick was dead, and when he came back I- I wished he wouldn't have. I love and care about Lori and Carl like they're my own."

"Wow," I mutter and look down. "I'm not sure what to tell you about that, but I think you need to stop acting like a lunatic and talk to Lori. Then leave her alone. Shane, she is Rick's wife, and he's your best friend. You need to respect that."

"I know," he sighs and rubs his head again. "I'll go try to talk to her."

"Just tell her how you feel, but make sure to tell her that you won't interfere with her and Rick. She'll respect that," I say as he exits the trailer and walks off.

* * *

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	15. Chapter 15: The Barn

**Beatrix**

"Hey," I mumble as I enter mine and Daryl's tent. He's laying on his sleeping bag like usual, playing with his arrows.

"I'm sorry," Daryl blurts out as I sit down on my blanket.

"Did Daryl Dixon just apologize to me?" I raise my eyeborw and let out a small laugh.

"I'm serious, Trixy. I didn't mean to hit ya," he looks up at me.

"At least buy me a drink before you abuse me," I roll my eyes jokingly.

"Beatrix, I'm being serious," he says, clearly not amused at my attempt at humor.

"I know," I tell him. "It's honestly okay. It was my fault for getting behind you anyway. And you didn't hit me, you elbowed me."

"It ain't your fault," Daryl sits up. "It's mine for being a jackass and not watchin' out for you."

"You couldn't have known I was back there. Like I said, it was an accident. It's also time for your stitches to come out, so lay down," I scoot closer to him and roll his shirt up. "They look good. It's healing quick, which is obviously good."

I quickly get to work on pulling his stitches out, being careful not to reopen the wound. Once they're all out, I drop them at the foot of the IV pole. The empty bag of saline that I tortured Daryl with is still hanging up, so I decide to take it down too. While I'm reaching up for it, I feel my shirt lift up a little and Daryl grabs my hands, forcing me to look at him.

"Tell me I didn't do that to you," he uses one finger to point to my stomach. I lift my shirt up to reveal a bluish-purplish bruise forming right above my belly button.

"Well, you did, but-"

"You must think I'm a monster," Daryl drops my hands and rubs his hands over his face, letting out a sigh. "Hell, I am a monster for hittin' a woman. Especially you."

"You're not a monster, Daryl," I sit back on my heels and look into his eyes. "I'm fine, and I'm not hurt."

"Like hell you aren't!" He raises his voice and lifts my shirt up, pointing to the bruise again. "I done that to you! Ya shouldn't even be talkin' to me right now."

"You didn't do it on purpose. It would be different if it was intentional," I give him a small smile. "I'm not afraid of you if that's what you think."

"Ya should be," he mutters, looking down.

"I'm not," I whisper as his eyes flicker up to meet mine.

"Don't want ya to be," he mumbles before grabbing my face and pulling it to his. His hands cup my cheeks as he pushes his lips to mine. His lips are rough and chapped, but so are mine. He lightly kisses me before I pull back and rest my forehead on his.

"Thought you didn't wanna kiss me?" I say with a smirk.

"Never said that," he grunts and pulls back.

"So you _do_ care about me," I smile and push my hair behind my ear.

"Never said that either," he sits back and picks his arrows back up.

"But you implied it," I say before standing up to leave.

"Where you goin'?" Daryl calls as I'm half out of the tent.

"I want to see what Rick and Shane are gonna do about the barn. You should come too," I say.

Daryl follows me out of the tent and we make our way back to the farmhouse. Once we get there, I can see that everybody is gathered around on the porch talking. The only people I don't see from our grou are Rick, Shane and Dale. Hershel and Otis seem to be missing too.

"Where's Rick?" I ask to nobody specifically.

"Hershel took him somewhere, but I don't know where. We were supposed to leave a few hours ago," Andrea answers with a sigh.

"Damnit, isn't anybody takin' this seriously? We've got us a damn trail," Daryl throws his hand in the air randomly before turning around to see Shane walking towards us with the bag of guns. "Oh, here we go."

"You with me?" Shane asks, handing Daryl a shotgun.

"Hell yeah," Daryl says as he takes the gun from Shane.

"Beatrix, you want one too?" Shane shoves a gun in my hands, not really giving me a choice before handing them out to the rest of the group.

"Thought we couldn't carry?" T-Dog asks, taking a gun from Shane.

"We have to and we will," Shane looks around at everybody. "It was one thing when we thought this place was safe, but now we know it ain't," Shane walks over to Glenn and holds a gun out to him. "What about you, man? You gonna protect your own?"

"Can you stop?" Maggie asks after Glenn takes the gun. "My dad will make you leave tonight if you do this."

"Hershel's just gonna have to understand," Shane says before walking over and kneeling in front of Carl, holding out a gun to him. "You take this, Carl. You know how to use it, go on, take it. You protect your mom at all costs."

"Guys, look," I say, pointing off into the distance. Rick, Hershel, and Otis are coming out of the trees with walkers on sticks in front of them.

Nobody gets a chance to say anything else before Shane takes off in a run towards the barn. We all take off after him, trying to stop him, but it's useless. By the time we all reach the barn, Shane has already met Rick, Otis and Hershel down there and has started screaming. I stop right beside of Daryl and he sticks his arm out in front of me, as if to say 'stay behind me'.

"These things aren't people, Hershel," Shane yells before shooting the walker on the end of Hershel's pole in the chest. "That's three rounds to the chest. Now tell me what human you know that can survive that. It just keeps comin' right back."

"Shane, don't do this," Rick warns while still holding onto his pole with the walker on it.

"Watch this," Shane says, shooting the walker two more times. "That's it's heart - its lungs. If that thing was alive, tell me how it could keep comin' right back like that."

"Shane!" Rick yells, "That's enough."

"Yeah, Rick. This is enough," he lets out a sarcastic laugh before shooting Hershel's walker in the head.

Hershel drops to his knees behind the walker and doesn't move when Maggie and Beth try to get his attention. Rick is screaming at Hershel to take his pole, and Shane is beating on the doors of the barn. Everything is happening at once and I just feel like crying.

"Shane, stop this!" Rick yells, while still trying to get somebody to take the pole from his hands.

Shane ignores him and picks up a pickaxe that's laying on the ground. He uses it to pry the locks off of the door, then backs up and holds his gun up as the walkers start pouring out of the barn. T-Dog, Daryl, Glenn, and Andrea step up with their guns too and begin shooting down walkers.

"Rick?" I say, walking over him. "Do you want me to?" I gesture to the walker on his pole and he nods his head. I hold my gun up to the side of its head and take a deep breath before pulling the trigger.

"Thank you," he nods to me and steps up beside of Shane.

Bulletts continue flying towards the barn, getting the walkers down one by one. I stand behind Daryl again, looking over his shoulder and feeling useles. Sure, I have a gun, but it's not like I have decent aim, so I just stand there and watch. After all of the walkers are dead, we all just stand in silence. I walk to stand closer to Daryl, who places a hand on my shoulder.

Then, I begin to hear one more walker shuffling inside of the barn. We all watch as the final walker comes out of the barn, only to see that it's Sophia. The little girl we've been looking for for almost two weeks was hidden in their barn the whole time, and she wasn't even alive. All of the hope we've put in finding her, especially Daryl, was all for nothing.

"Oh God," I mumble and turn my head into Daryl's chest.

"Don't look," he moves his hand to my hair and pats my head.

I jump a little at the sound of a gunshot and can hear Carol's screams from behind me. I lift my head up a little to see her on the ground with T-Dog holding her back. My heart literally breaks for her. I could never imagine what she's going through. Losing a child is a terrible thing, especially in a way like this.

All of a sudden, Beth starts screaming and I whip my head around to see why. She's standing over her mother, who's trying to bite her neck. Everybody scrambles to get her away from the walker, but I stay put with Daryl. There's not much I could do for her anyway.

"I almost died lookin' for that little girl," Daryl scoffs as he carves his stick. He's perched up on the pile of bricks beside of our tent.

"I know. It's not right, but it happened. There's nothing we can do about it now," I tell him. I'm currently laying on my back in front of him with my legs propped up on the bricks, just watching him.

"Damn idiots had to have known she was in there the whole time," he grumbles before looking up towards the house. "One of them's comin' now. Probably to ask me to do somethin for 'em."

"Be nice," I say and sit up. When the person gets closer, I can see that it's Lori and i smiled at her. "Hi, Lori!"

"Beatrix," she nods at me and then looks at Daryl. "Daryl I need you to go into town and get Rick and Hershel. Beth is in some kind of a catatonic shock and she needs Hershel."

"Your bitch went window shopping. If you want him, go fetch him yourself," Daryl says without even looking up. "I got better things to do."

" _Daryl_ ," I whisper-scold him.

"What's the matter with you?" Lori asks, looking offended. "Why would you be so selfish?"

"Selfish? Listen here, Olive Oil," Daryl raises his voice and stands up. "I was out searchin' for that little girl every single day I could. Took a bullett and an arrow in the process, so don't you tell me about gettin' my hands dirty. You want those two idiots? Have a nice ride. I'm done lookin' for people."

"Lori, I can help Beth," I say, trying to make what Daryl said feel less harsh. "I am a doctor, remember?"

"I don't think you can. She's grieving over her mom and she needs her dad," Lori shakes her head.

"Are you sure?" I ask. "It seems pretty serious. I wouldn't want anything to happen to Beth."

"Just stay here. We don't need you," she scoffs and leaves.

"You were supposed to be nice," I look up at Daryl after he's sat back down on the bricks.

"I'll be nice when they stop actin' like all I'm good for is doin' the shit that they don't feel like doin' themselves," he scoffs and continues sculpting his arrow. "I'm just redneck trash to them."

"I'm not having this argument with you again, Dary," I shake my head and lay back down.

"If I get the book, will you read while you're layin' there?" He stops with the arrow and looks at me.

"Of course," I smile and wait for him to bring me the book.

"Just so you know, I can read," he tries to joke, which makes me smile. "I just like hearin' you read to me."

"Good," I smile at him before opening the book to the last page I stopped at.

 _"'Jem,' I said, 'are those the Ewells sittin' down yonder?'"_

"The hell you mean they're tryin' to get this guy for rapin' and beatin' a woman on the right side of her face when he ain't even got a left arm?" Daryl practically yells.

"It's stupid, isn't it?" I sigh, saving the page and putting the book down.

"Don't tell me they find him guilty," he says, more as a statement than as a question.

"No spoilers," I smile at him. "It's getting dark. We probably should go to the house and see what's going on."

"Let's go," he nods and offers me a hand, pulling me up from the ground.

I hand him the book and he stuffs it into his back pocket. We take our time getting back to the house, which we really shouldn't have. When we made it inside, we saw that Lori was missing, along with Hershel, Glenn, and Rick.

"Beatrix, you seen Lori?" Shane asks as soon as Daryl and I walk in. "Daryl?"

"She came askin' me to go lookin' for Rick," Daryl scoffs. "Told her to go get him herself."

"How's Beth?" I ask Maggie, trying to tune out Shane and Daryl fighting.

"Not doing too well. Could you look at her? I asked Lori to send you in here earlier, but you never came," Maggie frowns and begins walking towards Beth's room.

"When Lori came to us, I asked if you all needed me to come to Beth," I tell her, thinking about what Lori had said. "She said that I couldn't help anything and that I just needed to stay put."

"What the hell?" Maggie asks as she opens the door. "Why would she say that? She knew we needed you. When she came back, she said that you wouldn't go with her. Said that you were too busy with Daryl."

"That's not what happened at all, I promise," I shake my head and put a piece of hair behind my ear.

Beth is laying on her bed, completely still with her eyes fixed on the celing, barely even blinking. I automatically check her pulse and breathing just to make sure she's fine. They seem fine and I let out a sigh of releif. Beth is a sweet girl, and I actually like her a lot.

"I'll give her a sedative so her body isn't working so hard," I smile at Maggie. "She's just in shock, probably from losing her mother a second time. She should be out of it soon, so you shouldn't worry."

"Can she hear me?" Maggie looks up at me as she sits down beside of Beth on her bed.

"Yeah. She's aware of her surroundings, she just can't do anything about it," I say before going out to my medical trailer to get the medicine she needs.

By the time everything with Beth is done, everybody is gathered outside waiting on Shane to return with Lori. I stand next to Daryl, but not too close obviously. After about five minutes, we can see headlights and identify the car as Shane's.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Maggie yells at Lori as soon as she's out of the car. "Beatrix offered to help Beth, and you told her that she couldn't do anything? I sent you out there to get her!"

"I needed Daryl to go get Rick," Lori runs a hand over her face, smearing the blood from the multiple cuts. "I knew that he definitely wouldn't go if he thought we didn't need Hershel."

"You _bitch_ ," Maggie gasps while everyone stares at them. I look a Daryl and shake my head at the look of amusement on his face. "She could have died!"

"Let's calm down now," Shane steps inbetween them, seeing as Maggie looked like she could slap Lori at any second. "We're all fine now, so it's okay."

"Where's Rick?" Lori asks to nobody in particular.

"He hasn't made it back yet," Andrea says as if it's obvious, which it kind of is. I mean, he's not here so where else would he be?

"You lied," she points her finger at Shane. "You said he was already back."

"Lori, I had to get you back here," Shane runs a hand over his face. "If I told you that he wasn't here, you wouldn't have come back. I had to protect you and the baby."

"You're having a baby?" Carl asks Lori in disbelief. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I'm sorry, man. I thought you knew," Shane shakes his head and looks down.

I look over at Daryl and his pupils are dialated. He gives me a 'you know about this?' look, and I nod my head in response. He only grunts. It all falls silent after that, until I go to Lori and offer to clean her cuts.

"I'm sorry I lied," Lori says once we've got into the trailer.

"You wanted to make sure your husband was safe. I get it," I mumble as I rub the alcohol pads over her wounds.

"And he's not even back," she shakes her head as a tear falls from her eye.

"Don't cry, Lori. I'm sure he's fine. He's with Hershel and Glenn, two people who can easily defend themselves," I try to comfort her.

"I still worry about him though. When you have a husband you'll understand," she gives me a small smile that I return as I bandage her face.

"I don't think that'll be happening anytime soon," I sigh and sit back on my stool after I finish with her face. "Shane told me what happened with you two. Do you know if the baby's his?"

"He told you?" She asks, looking surprised. I nod my head and she sighs. "I honestly have no idea if the baby is his or Rick's. But it doesn't matter because either way, Rick will be the father. Shane won't have anything to do with it."

"Not to sound rude, but what if it comes out lookin' just like Shane?" I ask, picking at my fingernails. "Everyone will know."

"I didn't even think about that," she shakes her head. "I guess they'll just have to mind their own buisness then, even if I don't make it through child birth to see it."

"Lori, you're gonna make it," I place my hand on hers. "I'll be there the whole time, and I'll help you survive it. I promise."

"Thank you," Lori gives my hand a squeeze and then heads back towards the house.

"Mom, can I tell dad about the baby?" Carl asks as soon as we walk through the door.

"Sweete, he already knows," Lori tells him, taking a seat on the couch as I sit down on the opposite couch between Daryl and Andrea.

"Oh. How'd you even get pregnant?" He asks, looking so innocent.

I try to hold back a laugh, but Daryl and Andrea don't even attempt. Half of us are laughing, and the other half are looking at Carl, waiting to see who's gonna tell him how it happened. Lori seems to be begging all of us with her eyes to help her out, but nobody seems to want to do anything.

"Why is everyone laughing?" Carl looks around at all of us and blushes.

"We, uh, never had the talk with him," Lori says.

"What talk?" Carl asks again. "The one about where babies come from?"

"Maybe you should ask Beatrix. She's a doctor, so she knows that kind of stuff," Lori says to him.

"No, nope. Not doing it," I shake my head and pull my knees up to my chin. "That's your job."

"Ask your dad when he gets back," Lori says as she plants a kiss on the top of his head.

"Get your ass up," Daryl says, shaking my shoulders.

"Huh?" I force my eyes open and lift my head up. It's light outside, so I must have fallen asleep on his shoulder last night.

"They're back. Let's go," he stands up and heads out the front door after everybody else, me following right after him.

"He just got swerved," I mumble under my breath after watching Hershel hold his arms open while Maggie ran right past him to Glenn.

" _Beatrix_!" Andrea whispers from beside of me, clearly trying not to laugh.

"I'm sorry that was mean," I shake my head with a small smile on my face.

"Who is that guy in the backseat?" Otis asks from the back of the group. Though his nose looks slightly deformed now, it's pretty much all healed up.

"That's Randall," Rick says with his arm around Lori. "His group left him for dead, so we brought him back here. Beatrix, can you fix his leg? We accidentally mangled it on a fence post. He's out cold right now."

"Of course, yeah," I nod and look to the medical trailer. "I'll need you guys to get him in there and get him on the middle bed, and then I'll need Maggie, Patricia, and Hershel to help me. If you guys don't mind?"

"We'll help you. We can scrub up and meet you in there," Maggie tells me before taking off into the house with Patricia, Hershel and I following her.

Once I've got my hands all washed, I go back out to the trailer. I get Rick to get out the supplies I need, seeing as it doesn't matter if he touches them. If I done it, I'd have to wash my hands again and everything. Plus, everything is in plastic wraps so it's still sterile.

"Are you all ready?" I ask my small team of nurses. It's actually funny to think of Hershel as a nurse. They all nod and we get to work on fixing Randall's damaged leg.

* * *

Wow! I hit 10k reads—thank you all so much! I appreciate all of your favs, follows, and reviews. Hope you liked this chapter!


	16. Chapter 16: Randall

**Beatrix**

"Randall's leg is fixed. It was hard getting the muscle and tissue repaired, and he'll have some long-term nerve damage, but other than that, he should be fine. He can be up and walking in about a week," I say as I walk into Hershel's living room. Everyone seems to be discussing Randall's fate, as if they're just going to kill him.

"When he's ready, we give him a canteen, take him out to the main road, and send him on his way," Rick says, placing his hands on hips.

"That's just the same as leaving him for the walkers," Andrea shakes her head as Daryl walks in the house and stands next to me.

"He'll have a fighting chance," Rick shrugs his shoulders.

"So that's it? We're just gonna let him go?" Shane asks, running a hand over his head. "He already knows where we are."

"He was blindfolded the whole way here, not to mention unconscious. He's not a threat," Rick shakes his head.

"Not a threat?" Shane scoffs, "You killed three of their men, took one, and you don't expect them to come lookin'?"

"They left him for dead!" Rick raises his voice. "No one is looking."

"You're about to leave him for dead too!" I speak up. "I swear to God, Rick, if you made me waste medical supplies and get emotionally invested in this boy just so you can take him out and leave him in the middle of nowhere-"

"Beatrix, calm down," Daryl places his hand on my shoulder.

"No, I will not calm down," I half laugh. "I just spent about three hours fixing up this boy's leg, and now you're just going to let him die!"

"We should still post a guard," T-Dog suggests.

"Well I'm just gonna go get him some flowers and candy," Shane scoffs and starts to walk away.

"We haven't even dealt with what you done at my barn yet," Hershel walks over to Shane, pointing his finger and raising his voice. "Let me make this perfectly clear: this is my farm and I wanted you gone. Rick talked me out of it, but that doesn't mean I like it. So do us all a favor and keep your mouth shut."

"Look, we're not gonna do anything about it today," Rick says, looking around at all of us after Shane leaves. "Let's just cool off."

"This is so stupid," I shake my head and look at Daryl. "They have no proof that he's a bad guy."

"Ain't got no proof that he's a good guy either," he shakes his head and leans his shoulder onto the wall.

"But he at least deserves a chance to stay alive," I start to raise my voice again, but then let out a sigh. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be angry at you."

"It's fine," he bites his thumbnail.

"I need to go find Shane," I mumble and head outside.

"Looking for someone?" Dale asks from on top of the RV.

"Yeah, Shane. Have you seen him?" I put my hand over my face to block the sun and look up at him.

"Went that way with Andrea, but he should be back soon," he points off to the barn. "I agree with you on Randall."

"I'm glad to hear that," I smile. "You're about the only one that does."

"They're being inhumane," Dale shakes his head.

"I know," I let out a sigh. "But it's not like they're going to listen to us. We're the old man and the innocent little girl that doesn't know anything except how to put a bandaid on a cut. That's all we are to them, even though we're much more. It doesn't matter though; They don't care about what we think."

"You're completely right," Dale sighs, but still gives me a small smile. "There's Shane."

"Thanks, Dale," I smile and run off towards Shane and Andrea. "Shane!"

"Need something, Beatrix?" Shane stops walking and looks at me.

"Can I talk to Shane alone please?" I say to Andrea. She nods and walks off, and I turn my attention back to Shane. "More blood?"

"Yeah," he nods his head slowly. "More blood."

"It's been five days, Beatrix. How long is Beth gonna be like this?" Maggie asks, looking down at her sister.

"I'm honestly not sure," I sigh and take a seat in the rocking chair beside of Beth's bed. "It should be soon though. These kinds of things normally don't last much longer than a week."

"That's good," Maggie smiles up at me while still holding Beth's hand. "I'm glad you're here to help her."

"Me too," I smile and divert my attention to Beth.

"So when are you finally gonna tell me what's goin' on with you and Daryl?" Maggie asks me, smirking.

"There's nothing happening with me and Daryl," I shake my head and attempt to hide the fact that I'm blushing.

"Don't give me that crap, Bea," Maggie scolds me. "There's clearly something there. You're always around him, and you always stand next to eachother- very close at that. Hell, you guys even share a tent."

"Well, I mean, he's my friend," I shrug my shoulders.

"No, Beatrix. I'm your friend, and we definitely don't look at each other the way that you and Daryl look at eachother," she smirks at me again. "So have you slept with him yet?"

"My God, Maggie, no. We've kissed like four times, but that's about it," I look down at the floor.

"Glenn and I have had sex like four times, but that's about it," Maggie wiggles her eyebrows at me.

" _Maggie!_ " I whisper-scold her and move my eyes to Beth, mouthing the words 'she can hear you.'

"Beth won't tell Daddy. I'd have to kill her," Maggie jokes and I let out a small laugh with her. "Really though, you like him."

"I do not," I roll my eyes at her.

"Stop denying it. He likes you too," she smiles up at me.

"Whatever, Maggie," I brush it off. In all honesty though, I do kind of hope that he likes me.

"Bea, her hand is moving," Maggie says excitedly after a few moments of silence.

"She might be coming around," I say getting up and grabbing ahold of her other hand. "Beth, try to squeeze my hand."

I slightly feel Beth's hand squeeze mine, and I smile over at Maggie, who keeps encouraging Beth to move her fingers and toes. She slowly begins moving and eveuntally she's sitting upright on the bed, though she doesn't look very happy.

"I'm gonna go get Daddy," Maggie smiles and walks out of the room, leaving me alone with Beth.

"I need to check your vitals," I tell her before checking everything I need. "I'm glad to see you're awake."

"Yeah," she sighs and sits back while Hershel and Maggie come back in.

"I'll leave you guys alone," I smile and make my way out of the room, giving them time to be with Beth.

"How's Beth?" Lori asks from the kitchen.

"Good, she finally came out of shock, which is amazing," I smile and take a seat at the counter in front of her. "Have you seen Rick anywhere? I need to go check on Randall's leg."

"I think Rick is out on a run with Glenn, but I haven't seen Daryl today," Lori says as she cuts up some carrots.

"He's probably back at the tent making arrows," I nod my head and jump up from the stool. "I'll see you later, Lori!"

I rub my index finger over the scar on my thumb as I walk toward mine and Daryl's tent. I still can't believe that I cut it open while trying to make arrows out of sticks. That was incredibly stupid.

"Daryl?" I call out once I make it close enough to our tent.

"Yeah?" He calls from the othe side of the brick wall.

"I need you to take me to go see Randall," I say, sitting down beside of him. "I'd go by myself, but apparently I'm not capable of redressing a wound on my own."

"I've already told you why you can't go in there without me," Daryl grunts and drops the arrow he's working on. "He ain't to be trusted."

"And I've already told you how I feel about that," I sigh and push my hair behind my ears. "Whatever though. It's time to go and you need to come with me or I'm doing it myself."

"I'm goin' with you," he firmly states and stands up, offering me a hand and pulling me up with him. "I'm serious, Trixy. Don't go in there alone."

"Okay, mom," I say sarcastically and roll my eyes at him.

We slowly make our way over to my medical trailer so that I can gather the supplies I need to help Randall. Daryl won't allow me to leave it in there because "Randall could use it to escape" or whatever. Randall seems like a nice boy and what we're doing to him is cruel.

I've been keeping myself updated with how Rick and Shane want to handle Randall, and it honestly is pissing me off so much. I'm not one for curse words, but this whole situation is pissing me off. They literally wanted to kill the boy, and they would have if it wasn't for Rick, Dale and I. Shane and Rick have agreed upon Rick's original plan of taking him eighteen miles out and leaving him with some supplies. Which that's a lot better than killing him flat out. At least now he has a chance.

"Trixy," Daryl waves his hand in front of my face. I must have zoned out on the way to the barn we're keeping him in. "When you get done, you need to leave so I can chat with him some more. Still won't tell me where his group is."

"Yes, mom," I roll my eyes at him again. "I don't see why I just can't sit in there and watch."

"Stop calling me 'mom'," Daryl gives me a weird look that I can't help but to laugh at.

"Would you like me to call you 'dad' instead?" I raise my eyebrow at him.

"Don't say that again," he says as his body tenses up.

"Just open the door," I roll my eyes.

"I am," he grunts as he pulls back the barn door.

"Hey, Randall!" I give him a small smile, and Daryl shoots me a look that says 'stop being so nice to him or I'll make you leave now'. "How does your leg feel?"

"Much better, ma'm," Randall tells me as I crouch down next to him.

I quickly check his vitals and sling my stethescope back around my neck. When I take the bandages off of his leg, I'm surprised to see that it's already starting to scab over. His leg should be okay to walk on in a couple of days, which is extremely good.

"Your vitals are good and your leg is almost completely healed, but you'll probably have a limp for the rest of your life. And it'll be super sore, but other than that you should be good," I tell him as I clean and redress his wound.

"Thanks," he looks up at me through his eyelashes. My heart completely breaks for him. He looks so sad and innocent.

"Beatrix, out now," Daryl says sternly, pointing to the barn door.

"I'm going, dad," I sigh and walk towards the door.

" _Beatrix_ ," Daryl scolds me and shakes his head, continuing to point towards the door. As if calling him 'dad' in front of Randall is the worst thing to ever happen. Actually, now that I think about it, I _really_ shouldn't call him 'dad'.

Daryl waits until I'm conpletley out of the barn to walk to the door, and he waits until I'm halfway back to camp before he finally shuts the door. I have no idea why he's so against me being in there, but it doesn't really matter. All I care about is keeping him alive.

"You seen Daryl?" Rick stops me a few steps away from my trailer.

"Yeah, he's talking to Randall in the barn. Did you and Glenn find any medical supplies?" I ask, really hoping that they did. I love my medical supplies.

"You know I did," Rick laughs and hands me the duffle bag that was in his hand. "I'm not sure what any of it is, but I got all of the medicine I saw."

"Thanks, Rick!" I smile and sling the duffle bag over my shoulder. "If you see Shane, will you send him in the trailer to see me? He needs his daily dose of blood."

"Will do," he nods his head and turns back to the house.

I make my way into the trailer with the very-heavy duffle bag to see what all Rick brought me. Once I get it on the bed and opened up, I can see that he's brought bag a large variety of pills, along with a variety of different band-aids and gauze. Not too shabby for a small run into town.

"You in here, Beatrix?" Shane asks, knocking on the door.

"Yeah, come in," I call and wait for him to sit down on one of the beds. "Any nausea, headaches, vomiting, or anything else?"

"Not since the puke yesterday when you were with me," he says, pushing his shirt down off of his shoulder.

"Good," I nod and get everything preped. "I think we can up your dosage again today, and within the next week, we need to see if our little experiment worked. If you're up for it, that is."

"Come on, Beatrix. You know I am," he gives me a half smile, but still winces as I stick the needle into his arm.

"Okay. We'll needs to talk to Rick and see how we're gonna go about testing it out," I tell him as I put a band-aid on his arm and clean everything up. "It'll probably be very painful for you though."

"I'm willing to do whatever it takes," Shane scoffs and buttons his shirt back up.

"What'd you get out of Randall?" Rick asks Daryl as he walks up to the porch.

For the past hour, Rick, Shane and I have been discussing the safest possible way to see if the blood experiment worked. So far, the only thing we've come up with is just letting one bite him, but that's not necessarily safe. We're going to have to come up with something better than this because I'm not willing to just let him get bitten.

"Got a group of 'bout thirty men," Daryl says as he sits down on the porch steps. "Said if they find us, they'll kill all our men and make the women wish they were dead."

"We just can't let them find us then," Rick says, running his hand over his beard.

"Yeah," Daryl nods and brings his thumb nail up to his mouth.

"Daryl, your knuckles," I slightly gasp as I get up to look at his hand. His knuckles are split and bleeding, and they look like they need stitches.

"It's fine," he tries to shrug it off.

"It's not," I shake my head. "Come on, let me stitch them up. I'm pretty good at sutures."

Daryl rolls his eyes at me, but gets up and follows me to the trailer anyway. He really doesn't say much, but it's okay. I like being around him. Even when he's fuming mad, he's always got this sort of calmness about him. When I'm near him, it actually kind of feels like the world is okay. Like we're not in the middle of an apocalypse, or whatever you want me to call it.

"Sit down," I point to the middle bed while gathering my kit for sutures. "So this is why you won't let me in there while you 'talk to him', right?"

"Just don't want you to see me like that," Daryl shrugs and tries to bite his nail again, but I pull his hand down and start to wipe his knuckles with alcohol pads.

"Daryl, I can see your bone on this one. How did you manage that?" I ask, looking up at him. He only looks guilty and turns to look at something on the wall beside of him. "How bad off is Randall? Do I need to go see him again?"

"No," he mumbles, looking back at me. "He don't deserve it anyway."

"Everyone deserves equal medical treatment," I counter. "Do you want me to numb it first?"

"No," he shakes his head and closes his eyes as I start with the stitches.

"Okay, what's up with you?" I finally ask, stopping when I'm halfway done with the stitches he needs.

"Nothin'," Daryl replies, using his free hand to rub his eyes.

"Clearly there's something wrong," I say, cutting the suture string, dropping the needle and sitting back on the stool. "I wanna know what it is."

"Damnit, Beatrix!" He raises his voice, "I'm just tryin' to protect you here!"

"Daryl," I mutter, reaching for his hand, but he only jerks it away.

"No. You wanna know what's wrong with me? Why I beat the hell out of that dumbass kid?" He continues yelling, using his hands for emphasis.

"You don't-"

"Because that piece of shit sat in there and told me what his group has done to women," Daryl scoffs and lowers his voice. "Trust me, Trixy, it's bad. Said they found a father and his two daughters. Said they raped the two girls and forced the father to watch. _Their father_."

"What's that got to do with-"

"I got scared," he mumbles. "Sacred because I don't want to have to watch that happen to you. So I lost it, and I beat the shit out of him. He said he had nothin' to do with it, but I don't care. He coulda' stopped it if he wanted."

"Daryl, I-"

"I don't know what I'd do if I had to go through that," he reaches his hand down to run his thumb over my cheek. "Hell, I've only known you for a little over a month and here I am, already gettin' all torn up and shit over you."

"That's not a bad thing, Daryl," I give him a small smile and stand up so that we're the same height.

"I ain't ever had this problem before," Daryl mumbles before pulling my face to his. It is in this moment, that I will openly admit to liking him.

He slowly works his lips against mine as I move my hands to tangle into his hair. After a few minutes, he starts to tug on my arms as he scoots back on the bed, signaling for me to climb up onto him. I oblige and pull myself up onto the bed so I can sit each of my knees on either side of his legs, basically straddling him. His hand starts to work its way up my shirt, and I pull away from the kiss to grab his hand and place it down on the bed beside of him.

"Not gonna have sex with you," I mumble against his lips before hopping off of the bed and sitting back on the stool. "Give me your hand. I need to finish your stitches."

* * *

Thanks for reading! Please review and tell me what you thought! It's very appreciated :)


	17. Chapter 17: Shane Walsh

**Beatrix**

"Are you sure he's okay to walk on his leg?" Rick asks me for about the fourteenth time in the past five minutes.

"Yes, Rick. His leg is almost completely healed," I nod my head and brush my hair behind my ears. "Please don't ask again. I am one hundred percent positive that he can walk. Me saying it multiple times doesn't make it any more true."

"Well then it's settled," Rick announces to the rest of the group. "Shane and I wil leave out of here with him in a hour. We're taking him eighteen miles out and leaving him with a care package."

"Still don't think it's a good idea," Shane says as he puts his hands on his hips. I raise my eyebrow at him as he staggers back a couple of steps and holds onto a tree to stand up.

"You okay, Shane?" I ask him.

"Fine," he mumbles and looks away. I know that this isn't good. He's having side effects right now and he doesn't need to be leaving camp.

"Any other objections?" Rick asks while everyone stays quiet. I don't like it, and I know Dale doesn't either, but it's better than just killing him. "Good. While we're gone, Hershel has asked if we want to move into the house since it's getting colder, so everyone needs to pitch in and help move our things inside."

"Rick," I say quietly, walking up so that only he can hear me. "Keep Shane safe. Don't let him die. We're so close to finding out if this thing works."

"Alright," Rick nods, walking away. I push my hair behind my ear and walk back over to Daryl.

"I ain't movin' in there," Daryl mumbles so that only I can hear him.

"Then I'll stay outside with you," I shrug.

"Beatrix, no," Daryl shakes his head and places a hand on my shoulder. "It's cold and you don't need to get sick."

"Neither do you, but I'm staying with you and you can't stop me," I look up at him and I know that he won't argue with me.

"Beth, honey, you don't wanna do this," I say, sitting down on the bed next to her. Lori has just confiscated a knife from her, that we're assuming she was going to use for an attempt at suicide.

"Yes I do," she mumbles and looks down.

"No, you don't," I grab her hand in both of mine and run circles on it. "This isn't they way to deal with this world. Lori went to go get Maggie, and you know just as well as I do that she's going to lose it."

"I don't care. Maybe she'll want to go with me," Beth shrugs. "It would be better, you know? We wouldn't have to worry about what's out there waitin' on us. You can go with us if you want."

"Beth, don't talk like that. I don't want to die, and I know Maggie feels the same way. You should feel that way too, " I sigh and force her to look at me. "Now, this can go one of two ways. I can let Maggie deal with this, and you know how she'll react. You'll be watched nonstop, she won't let you anywhere near anything sharp, and you'll never live it down. Months from now, you'll still be constantly watched because she won't trust you to be alone. Not to mention the fact that you'll never even have the chance to kill yourself. Beth, she'll watch you while you pee."

"I don't want that," she shakes her head, letting a few tears slip down her face.

"I don't want that for you either," I say softly. I honestly feel so bad for her. Her mom died a long time ago, but she's only now dealing with it and that can put such a huge strain in the human body. "So your other option is to talk to me when you need to and let me help you through this. Of couse, I'll still have to watch you for a little while, but that's inevitable. I'll take you under my wing. Even teach you how to be a surgeon if you want."

"I'd like that," Beth smiles and wipes the tears from her eyes.

"Good," I smile back and give her a tight hug. "Maggie needs to know though. I can still vouch for you, but you'll have to tell her."

"Tell me what?" Maggie asks, out of breath as she walks into the room.

"I'll let Beth tell you," I say, getting up and walking to the door. "Come and find me when you're done though. I'd like to talk to you about it too."

"I will," Maggie assures me as she sits on the bed with Beth, and while I go back to helping move everything inside.

"Did you get rid of him?" Lori asks as soon as Rick steps out of the car. It's been two hours since him and Shane had left with Randall and we've all been worried all day.

"Yeah," Rick sighs, running his hand over his bloody face. "Shane killed him, and then went down too."

"What do you mean by 'Shane went down'?" I ask, walking closer to Rick. "Because I know you don't mean that he died, after I specifically asked you to _not_ let him die."

"Beatrix, I tried-"

"No! Rick, you didn't try hard enough if he's not here!" I yell I try to get close enough to grab his shirt and yell at him, but Daryl holds me back by my arms.

"We were surrounded by walkers. He got trapped in a bus and I couldn't get him out," Rick deeply exhales and puts his hands on his hips.

"Are you sure? Did you physically see him die?" I ask, hoping that he didn't because if that was the case, I would be going back to find him.

"Trixy, just breathe," Daryl whispers in my ear, while his thumbs rub circles on my forearms in an attempt to calm me down.

"I watched one take a bite out of his neck," he says, trying to keep me calm.

"Damnit, Rick!" I raise my voice again. I would love to use my arms to yell, but Daryl won't let them go. "You know just as well as I do that he can survive that! And you didn't try to go back and get him?"

"They piled on him after that," Rick raises his voice back at me. "There was no way he was gettin' out of it!"

"The hell is she talking about?" Andrea yells to Rick, pointing at me.

"Yeah, what are you talkin' about?" Daryl asks into my ear.

"Beatrix thinks that Shane could be immune," Rick announces to the group.

"Immune?" Lori asks before everyone in the group has gathered in a circle around Rick, Daryl, and I. Not to mention the fact that they're all talking at the same time and I can't hear myself think.

"Quiet!" Rick raises his voice and everyone suddenly stops speaking. Wish I had that affect on people. "Beatrix, since you decided to let the cat out of the bag, you can explain to everyone what's been happening."

"You can-"

"No," Rick shakes his head. "You do it. Daryl, let her arms go."

"Okay, um," I use my newly freed hands to push my hair behind my ears. "For the past couple of weeks, I have been slowly exposing Shane to the the walker disease in an attempt to get his immune system prepared to fight it off. If I'm correct, Shane would have been able to fight off the disease if he got bitten. Then, I would be able to do the same thing for everyone else and start working on a perminant cure. We decided that we were going to see if it worked this week, but Rick went off and got Shane killed, so now we can't."

"What do you mean by 'exposing him to the disease'?" Glenn asks from the back of the circle.

"I've been injecting him with walker blood," I mumble, looking down.

"Is she shitting us right now?" Andrea looks to Rick, pointing at me.

"No, she's right," Rick slowly nods his head I agreement with me. "Shane was doing good. He could have survived if it would have only been one bite."

"Rick, how can you be okay with this?" Andrea practically yells, using her hands to emphasize her frustration.

"I trust Beatrix. She stayed behind to look after me for two months while I was in a coma," Rick answers calmly. "She has good judgement I trust her with my life, and you all should too."

"Why'd you pick Shane?" Carol speaks up.

"He had an elevated white count, making him the best candidate to be injected with a new infectious disease," I answer her.

"What does that mean?" Dale asks from behind me.

"Oh, yeah. Sometimes I forget that not everyone has the same medical knowledge as me," I let out a small laugh, trying to lighten the mood, but it doesn't work. Right now, I can't tell if everyone is down with my idea, or if they think I'm insane. If it's the later, it's likely that they'll want to kick me out of the group, and I can't deal with that. "Um, that means that he had the largest number of white blood cells out of anyone in the group. White blood cells make up your immune system, which fights off foreign diseases and infections. Even though we're not sure if it's a virus or an infection, it doesn't really matter to the white cells; they'll still fight it off. I thought that since Shane had the most, I could slowly expose him to the disease so that his white cells would be able to fight it off and be able to kill all of the diseased cells that I exposed him too. So far, I was right. He had very little symptoms, but some were severe. Though I do think it was worth it, for what I've got to find out. I don't know if I was right though. I have no way of knowing if he was capable of fighting off the disease if he got bitten."

"That's ludacris," Andrea scoffs.

"But it was working," I turn around to look at her. "You have no right to criticize my medical trial, that could potentially save your life, unless you can come up with something better. Can you do that?"

"No," she mumbles, looking down.

"Listen, everyone needs to just calm down," Rick speaks up again, hushing everyone in the circle. "Beatrix, Shane, and I were working hard to try and keep this group safe. I wouldn't have let her do what she done if I didn't think it was in the best interest of the group. Since Shane died, I would like her to continue her experiment on the person with the highest white count after Shane. If there is anyone who wouldn't be okay with her doing that, you need to stand over to the left. Anyone who would be willing to help out and get a potential immunity, step to the right."

"I'll go get the blood work," I mumble to Rick before running off to my trailer.

By the time I get back, the majority of the group is standing to the left and Hershel and his family have made their way out to see what's going on. Rick, Daryl, and Glenn were standing to the right, while everyone else was on the left. Hershel's family are all in a little group of their own. I think it's very rude of the ones on the left to not want to help out. It's not like I'm going to let them die. I've done this before and I know what I'm doing.

"Seriously?" I ask, raising my eyebrow and crossing my arms as I stand in front of everyone. "Only three of you are willing to help me figure out how to build up a defense system to this disease? The rest of you are pathetic. Except for you, Carl. You're young and it wouldn't be the best idea for you anyway. You're exempt from the trial, come and stand with me. You can help me."

"I don't think so," Lori counters, grabbing Carl's arm as he tries to walk towards me.

"Like I said," I shake my head and look down at my clipboard with the blood work. "Pathetic. I'm only trying to help you, people."

"I'm pathetic?" Lori scoffs. "This is my twelve year old son. I will not have him taking part in this."

"That's literally what I just said," I look up at her. "Did anyone else hear me say 'Carl, you're exempt from the trial'?"

"I did," Rick crosses his arms, looking at Lori. He's probably mad about the whole baby with Shane thing.

"Whatever," she sighs and rubs her temples. "Go on, Carl."

"Yay!" Carl smiles, running up to me. "You promised me doctor lessons last week. Can I start them now?"

"Of course. Right after we figure out who's next in the trial," I smile at him and ruffle his hair, then return my attention to the rest of the group.

"What in God's name is going on out here?" Hershel finally yells.

"Beatrix is out of her damn mind," Andrea yells back at him.

"Do you really wanna start with me again, Andrea?" I ask, walking closer to her, fully prepared to hit her.

"Trixy, you need to calm down," Daryl says, walking up to me and pushing me back to stand with Carl. "I know how passionate you are about your medical shit, and I get it, but you need to calm down and stop trying to fight wit people."

"Don't make me ask again," Hershel raises his voice again. There has been so much yelling today it's ridiculous.

"I had an idea," I smile and explain everything over again to Hershel and his family. "I just need to find the next candidate. Do you happen to have a copy of any of your blood work?"

"I have all of ours," he smiles and nods at me. "Maggie, please go grab the latest labs for all of us."

"Why do you already have a copy of your blood work?" Glenn asks. Quite frankly, I'm wondering the same thing.

"I'm a doctor too, Glenn," Hershel smiles at him. "An animal doctor, but still a doctor. I like to be up to date on my family's health status."

"Here," Maggie jogs up to me, hands me the papers, and walks back over to her little group.

"Okay, if you all would like to take part in my trial, stand with Rick. If you don't want to help potentially help save your own life, along with the rest of the group's, go stand with the other group," I direct them to where they need to be.

"This is stupid," Andrea complains. "None of us are actually going to let you inject us with walker blood. Are you insane?"

"That's enough, Andrea," Rick sternly scolds her.

"Now I need to eliminate the people who aren't able to take part in this," I mumble to myself, looking between the two groups. "Anyone over the age of sixty or under the age of twenty needs to stand behind me. Glenn, you too. You don't have a spleen and your spleen stores your white blood cells. You have less than everyone else, and you're more prone to infection. It would be a death sentence for you."

"This is crazy, you know that right, Beatrix?" T-Dog asks me.

"Yeah, but like I said before, it works," I sigh and look to the charts.

"This is idiotic. I'm leaving," Andrea throws up her arms and walks off in the direction of the house. She is a moron.

We're now up to Rick, Daryl, Maggie, Otis, and Jimmy on the right side, with Carl, Hershel, Glenn and Beth standing behind me. All of the other jerks are on the left. As I look through my charts, I notice that the person with the highest white count is Daryl. While it's good that he's willing to do it, I'm not willing to do it to him. I'm fully confident that I can pull this off, but Daryl is too important for me to risk it. I'll have to lie to them. Lucky for me though because nobody else, except maybe Hershel, knows how to read the labs.

"So who is it?" Glenn asks anxiously.

"Um, give me just a minute," I say, flipping through the charts to find the next person in line. "It's, um, T-Dog."

"Oh hell no," T-Dog says as his face drains of all color as he looks at the ground. "Ain't no way."

"T-Dog, think about it. You could help save all of us. Are you sure there's no way you'll do it?" I ask him, fully prepared to talk him into it if I need to.

"I don't know, man. Do you know how risky that is?" He says, rubbing his head.

"Yes, I'm well aware," I answer his rhetorical question. "T, I know what I'm doing. You need to trust me on this."

"We can discuss it more later," Rick walks up to the front of the group.

"Glenn, would you be willing to help out?" I ask him before he can walk away.

"I guess," he shrugs and grabs Maggie's hand. I can't help but feel a small wave of jealousy wash over me. Not because of Glenn, but because I realize that I want to be like that with Daryl.

"Everyone else, go back to your chores," Rick announces. "T-Dog, Glenn and Beatrix come with me so that we can get everything worked out."

"Yes, sir," I mumble and walk off with them to my trailer.

"Daryl!" I call, running to catch up with him. It's almost dark out and he's walking toward our tent.

"Trixy," he says, giving me a rare, almost smile.

"I have an idea," I smile back and grab his hand. To my surprise, he doesn't jerk away. "We can sleep in the medical trailer. I mean, it has beds, so it'll be more comfortable. Not to mention the fact that we'll be closer to the house in case things go bad, and I'll be so close to all of my medical supplies and-"

"Stop rambling," Daryl says, cutting me off. "We can move into the trailer."

"You are the best," I say with my widest smile. "Let's go move our things."

It takes us a few minutes, but we eveuntally get to our tent. Daryl insisted on carrying all of mine and his bags to prove he's a manly man or something. I grabbed both of the IV poles, the sleeping bag, and my bag of medicine. In one trip, we managed to bring all of our belongings to the medical trailer, except for the tent. Daryl said he'd take it down tomorrow.

"I want the middle bed," I tell him once we start moving our things in. "Hand me Ellis."

"Ellis?" Daryl raises his eyebrow.

"The taller IV pole," I point to it.

"You've lost your damn mind. Naming your damn medical sticks of magic and shit," he scoffs, handing it to me anyway.

"Oh my God, Daryl," I put my hand over my face, not bothering to hold back the slight laugh I have. "For the last time, it's an IV pole."

"You seriously named the damn thing?" He raises his eyebrow at me and begins moving his things onto the bed farthest away from the door.

"Yeah, I did," I smile and throw my bags under my bed. "I named Mark too. Mind handing him to me?"

"You've officially lost it, Trixy," Daryl lets out a very small laugh before handing me the shorter IV pole. I sit it down beside of the first bed, which is the one I'm going to use for treating everyone.

"Oh, come on. You know you love me," I joke with him, taking a seat on my bed.

"You keep on tellin' yourself that," he grunts, laying down. It falls silent for a few moments before I decide to break it.

"I feel like you could love me," I smile, laying back on my bed. "Not anytime soon, of course, but you definitely could in the future if you wanted to."

"Beatrix-"

"No, let me talk. It's my turn," I cut him off. "I am not the type of person to say things like this, but it's the end of the world and I need to get it out. I have recently become aware of the fact that I like you, and I'm pretty sure you like me too." I pause and take a deep breath before continuing, "Now it's your turn to talk."

"Goodnight, Beatrix," Daryl sighs, rolling over to face away from me on his bed.

"Goodnight," I mutter, trying my best to ignore the feeling of rejection that I get so often when I'm around Daryl.


End file.
